Serendipity
by Strix Prudens
Summary: Luffy and his brothers have just moved into a new town. This means a new home, a new school, and a new life. The moment he enters the school, everyone realizes something is up with Luffy. There's something strange about this boy that keeps attracting the people everyone was afraid of... Does he have the potential to change their school forever? (All rights of cover go to artist)
1. A New Beginning

**This is my first story! I'm so excited! :D I hope you guys will like it!**

**DISCLAIMER: all of the wonderful characters in this story belong to Oda-_sensei_, not me!**

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The wind gently tugged at the leaves on the trees around them. A young boy stood on the side of the sidewalk, his raven-colored hair moving as the wind flowed by him. He gripped onto the straw hat he held in his hands tighter. "Luffy!" a voice called from behind him.

Luffy turned around to see his two brothers getting in the car. One of his brother's had already got into the passenger's seat and closed the door firmly behind him. Luffy looked up to see his eldest brother smiling at him from where he stood at the entrance to the driver's seat. He had curly blonde hair and wore a blue shirt, a black jacket with long sleeves and a long collar, along with pale jeans. His brother walked over to him and placed a comforting hand on Luffy's shoulder. "Are you ready to go, Luffy?"

"I... I'm not sure, Sabo..."

"Don't worry!" Sabo said, "It'll be fine. You'll meet lots of new people, Luffy. The place where we're going is said to have the best education for you and us. Besides, Ace needs this. He's a dope already... As his brothers, we've got to look out for him!"

Luffy sighed and looked away, "I... I suppose so..."

Sabo frowned softly. "Look, I know that you're nervous, Luffy. But, I'm telling you: you don't have to be! I know that things might not have gone so great at this town, but it's time to let go of the past. This is a new town, a new house, a new _life_. It doesn't have to be as bad as you think it'll be. Besides, you'll always have your big brothers with you, Luffy. There's no need to look so down!"

"Yeah... Yeah, you're right," Luffy said. He looked over at Sabo and replied with a nod, "I'm ready."

Sabo smiled at his little brother, "Good! I knew you'd say that! Now, come on, if we head out now, we'll probably be able to get there by the afternoon!"

Luffy nodded. Following Sabo, he got into Ace's new, red car that cost more than a regular car-or any car in general-should cost. Sabo sat down and looked over at Ace. "How about you, Ace? Are you ready?"

Ace blinked his eyes open and tilted his head down. He sighed and scratched his chin. Ace had ebony colored hair with freckles dotting his face. He wore a dark red shirt that had a small picture of a flame on the front. On top of his shirt he wore a black leather jacket with black jeans, a watch chain hanging out of his pocket. "Meh... I suppose." He stopped and looked at Sabo. "Can I sleep on the way there?"

"You'll have to wake up to eat, you know."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah, I know! I'd do that either way."

"Then, sure. Do whatever the heck you want..." Sabo sighed impatiently as Ace cheered, falling fast asleep almost instantly. "Next stop: Grand Line City!"

"Finally~! We've arrived~!" Ace cheered. He sprang from the car and tumbled onto the lawn. "It feels so nice to get out of that cramped car! I felt like I was becoming claustrophobic...!"

"Ace, now isn't the time to lay on the grass, you know!" Sabo called out to the teenager that was stretched out on the lawn. "We've got boxes to take out of the trunk. They're heavy, so we might need some help getting them into the house." Sabo looked over at Luffy. He was standing in front of the house, looking it over. "Luffy?" Sabo called out. Luffy looked at him, suddenly seeing the keys being thrown at him. He caught them and looked up at Sabo. "You would mind opening up the house for us?"

"All right," Luffy nodded. He walked up to the door and turned the lock. Luffy heard the click and he opened the door, stepping into the house.

The house was large and spacious. There was nothing whatsoever on the any of the walls, save for the red wallpaper. Ace and Sabo walked in with a huge television in their hands. "Wow...!" Ace gasped, "It's so big!" Suddenly, Ace let go of the television, leaving Sabo struggling to keep a good grip on it. "I could get used to this place! What about you, Little Bro?" Ace asked as he looked at Luffy.

Luffy didn't respond.

"Little Bro?" Ace repeated. He waved a hand in front of Luffy's face. "Hellooo~? Is anyone in there~?"

"Ace...!" Sabo called out, "You moron...! Help me...!"

"Luffy~!"

"Ace...!"

"Luffy~!"

"Oh, _for crying out loud_, Ace! Listen to me, you _idiot_! Help your older brother when he's trying to hold a TV!" Sabo snapped at the top of his lungs. Ace jumped and ran over to Sabo's side, quickly supporting the other end of the television. They set the television down on a coffee table at the back of the room.

Finally, the boxes were unpacked. The house had three rooms down below: the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room. The open entrance to the kitchen was directly to one's left when they entered the house. When a person walked into the house, they were already standing in the living room. If one were to walk directly forward through the living room, they would come upon the open entrance to the dining room.

The kitchen was large with black tiles on the wall and a brown floor. The sink, oven, and microwave was silver, and the cupboards were made of brown wood. The dining room had a small chandelier hanging in the center of the room. Below the chandelier was a long, brown dining table. The wallpaper was a deep red and there were green, potted plants on the corners of the room. Looking straight ahead, there was a long window with white curtains. At the very back right side of the dining room was a white door that led into the backyard.

If one were to stand at the entrance to the kitchen and walk in, to their right at the very corner of the back of the room was a white door that led to a pathway to the backyard. On the doorway's left was a staircase. Going up the staircase, one would enter a small hallway that was about two feet long. On the right of the hallway was a white door that led to a balcony that sat in the very center of the house. Going to the bottom of the short hallway and turning to one's left, there was another white door that led to a large room which Luffy had claimed. Standing still at the bottom of the short hallway, if one were to turn to their right, there would be a much longer hallway where there was a door to the bathroom, then a door to Ace's room, and then a door to Sabo's room on the end.

Luffy walked up the stairs and entered in his room. He looked at the red walls, then at the desk area that was to his right. In front of him was a bed that lay under a long window with white curtains gently flowing in the breeze that was let in through the open window. Luffy walked over to the window and closed it.

As he walked up to the window, he looked up to see the night sky. "I see... Unpacking everything took all day, huh?"

Suddenly, a light flipped on in the room in the house across from him. In the room stood a tall, young man around Luffy's age. He wore a white shirt, a black jacket, and baggy, camouflage pants. He had three, golden earrings on his left ear. His hair color was an oddly bright color of green. The green-haired man looked up at Luffy. Luffy smiled softly and waved at his new neighbor.

The green-haired man frowned and walked over to the window. He grabbed the stick to close the blinds. Before he turned it, he waved back at him. Luffy watched as the image of his neighbor disappeared when he closed the blinds.

Luffy sighed and fell back onto his bed. He sighed and looked at his hand. It was different every since the accident. Even though the accident had been such a long time ago, he never stopped wishing to become normal again.

Sighing again, he stood up and got in his pajamas. He fell back onto his bed again. Luffy took off his treasured straw hat and set it down on the table next to his bed. Luffy turned off the light and laid back. He stared up at the ceiling for a while. "Maybe this feeling will go away once I get used to it here?" Luffy asked himself. "Well, Luffy, there's no way to find out until you try to do that..."

With that, Luffy turned onto his side, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

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**Well? How was it? I'm going to write more soon. I'm not able to write during the week, so chapters will only be posted during the weekends. (Sorry!)**

**I'm having so fun with this book~! Oh, by the way: there's _NO_ Yaoi in here! Just in case you were wondering, you know? But, I'm all for Luffy x Nami! And sometimes Franky x Robin... And we all know ****that ****Sanji x Viola is real! ;D You can tell me which one of those you'd like to see! **

**If this is confusing in any way, I'm sorry. I've got a MAJOR headache. I don't know why... maybe it's because I've been staring at a white screen for too long... Hmm... I don't know.**

**But, yeah! I hope you guys liked it! I can't wait to write more! :)**


	2. Neighbors

**Wow! I'm so excited by all the nice reviews I found when I came on! :D I'm ALSO excited to write more! This isn't even my best story, though. I'm working out the details in my best one for now, so I won't publish that one for a while. (I also want to finish this one for you guys, as well!)**

**For now, enjoy this one, and I'll work on my others soon~! :D**

**DISCLAIMER: Our dear friend and teacher, Oda-_sensei_, owns all of the characters in this story-not me!**

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"Hey! Luffy! Wake up!" a voice called from downstairs in the kitchen. Luffy blinked his eyes open.

When he turned over, he saw Ace leaning against the doorway of his room. "Good morning, Luffy! You going to get up now? We've been waiting for you for about a half an hour now. Really, we're tired of waiting, little bro..."

Luffy groaned and lifted himself up. "Sorry, Ace... I just-"

"No apologies!" Ace interrupted. "Sabo and I, sadly, have to go run a few errands. We can't leave you here, alone, in the house while you're _asleep_ and not protecting the place. We spent...a fair amount of money on this house, and we're not going to let some burglar come in and steal all of our new, precious money!"

"OK, Ace," Luffy said with a grin, "I'm getting up."

"Good!" Ace smiled back.

Luffy got out of bed and got dressed. The thing that Luffy cared about most in the world were his two brothers. Unfortunately, they weren't his blood brothers. As a child, Luffy's abusive grandfather, Garp, had gave Luffy to a friend of his named Dadan, who was also abusive-but in comparison to Garp, she was an angel. Dadan lived in, literally, the middle of nowhere on the very top of an extremely dangerous mountain. Her hobby was thieving. The point of this was to raise Luffy to be a strong, young man. When Luffy had arrived at Dadan's home, he found Ace and his friend, Sabo already living there. The three boys quickly became friends and became inseparable ever since.

Recently, though, Sabo, Ace, and Luffy had realized something extremely shocking about themselves. They learned right after Sabo and Ace became twenty-one years old. Sabo's parents and all of his ancestors were rich nobles of a very wealthy kingdom. Ace's father was the leader of a band of thieves, along with being the descendant to a very wealthy king. As the leader of a large band of thieves, Ace's father collected a large sum of money that he kept for himself. Luffy had already known about this, but Garp was actually a Navy hero, earning him millions of dollars. (Luffy was also the long lost descendant of King Pakal the Great, but we won't get into too much detail about that...) In short, the three brothers were all millionaires.

Sabo bought Ace and him a rare scholarship for an extremely well-educated university in Grand Line City, as well as a spot in a wonderful high school called New World High for Luffy. Sabo was also the one that bought their new house. Ace bought "cool" clothes for all of his brothers, a sports car that Ace bought personally as well as a BMW i8 that Ace decided to pick up later (which is one of the errands that Ace and Sabo had to go on), the most advanced technology that a man has never heard of, and a bunch of other useless junk that will probably get old soon. Luffy, on the other hand, decided to save his money for when they really needed it.

Luffy walked downstairs. The smell of eggs, toast, pancakes, bacon, and a bunch of other meats wafted over Luffy when he entered the kitchen. Sabo looked over and smiled wide when he saw Luffy. "Ah! Good, good! You've come!" Sabo said happily, "I know that you two like to eat, so I cooked a lot of food for you guys. You had better eat them, or else I'll throw them away."

"That's crazy talk!" Luffy scoffed, "Of course I'll eat them!"

"I know," Sabo grinned.

Luffy quickly ate up his breakfast, as did Ace and Sabo. After breakfast, Luffy's brothers said their good-byes and left the house to pick up furniture, food, and Ace's new car. Luffy sighed and collapsed onto the couch. He put his feet up on the coffee table and turned on the television. _"Soul King Brook is coming to Grand Line city on May 6th! Grab your Soul King Brook hats, shirts, and... whatever else you've got about Soul King Brook and come on down to the Soul King Brook concert! You know you're going to love it! Because he's a sensation and everyone's talking about him, so you don't want to get left out-Ah! I-I mean... because he's the best singer in the world!"_

Luffy stopped. Soul King Brook was his favorite singer! How he did his makeup looked almost real! He was so cool!

Suddenly, a knock on the door brought Luffy back to reality. He coughed, stood up, and walked over to the door. When he opened it, he saw a tall, young woman standing in the doorway. She had pale skin, long black hair, snake earrings, and an expression on that was obviously saying that she was extremely annoyed at being at his door. "Um... Hello?" Luffy greeted in confusion.

The woman looked at him with a very snooty frown. "Hello. So... you're my new neighbor, are you?" the girl asked. Her voice was so irritated that it made Luffy hate her even more.

"I...think so. I'm not sure, though," Luffy replied.

"My grandmother said that I should be a 'good neighbor' and bring these to you," the girl said. She lifted up a basket to Luffy's face. Luffy became even more irked by his neighbor by the fact that she had no idea what 'personal space' was, which was clearly shown by the basket that was only a few centimeters away from his nose.

Luffy grabbed the basket and, instead of snapping at her, he put out a hand for a handshake. "I'm Luffy! It's nice to meet you!"

"Luffy?" she repeated. The girl hesitated. Without taking his hand, she replied, "My... my name is Boa Hancock. I live across the street from you."

"Oh!" Luffy said. He had thought that she would have been in the house to his left, not across the street from him. "I live here with my two brothers, Ace and Sabo! What about you?"

"Um... I live with my sisters and my grandmother," Hancock answered.

"What are their names?"

"Oh... Boa Sandersonia and Boa Marigold are my sisters. My grandmother's name is Nyon," Hancock replied. She hesitated before turning away. "I'm going to go now. I don't like you."

"You-what! You barely even know me! How can you hate me already?" Luffy exclaimed.

"It's not what you've done," Hancock said quietly. With that, she walked away.

Luffy sighed. _'What was that all about?'_ Luffy asked himself. Suddenly, Luffy blinked and looked to his right. On the lawn of his neighbor's house stood the green-haired man that he had seen yesterday spraying water from a hose on the flower bushes in his front yard.

Luffy smiled and ran over to the fence. He waved at the green-haired man calling out, "Hey! Hello! I saw you yesterday!" The green-haired man stood still. Luffy noticed that the young man was not moving his arm. His neighbor was almost like a statue he was so still. "Um... Hello?" Luffy repeated.

All of a sudden, a loud snore erupted from the green-haired man. It was so loud and sudden that it made Luffy jump. "He's... he's asleep!" Luffy gasped. The young man hesitated before calling out, "Wow! That's so awesome!" Luffy burst out laughing.

The young, black-haired teenager's laughter unconsciously awoke his strange neighbor. "W-what? What's going on?" he stuttered. His voice was deep and had a similar tone to that of a villain.

"Ah! You woke up!" Luffy exclaimed.

The green-haired man looked over at Luffy. "W-what? Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy!" Luffy explained.

"Oh, that's nice," the man said. He went back to watering the flowers in his yard as if Luffy had never been there.

"Hey!" Luffy called out, "What's your name?"

The man stopped. He walked over and turned off the water on the hose. The green-haired man looked back over at Luffy, resting his hand on his three swords that hung from the green haramaki around his stomach. "My name is Roronoa Zoro. I'm a professional Santoryu swordsman."

"Wow...! Cool...!" Luffy gasped. He actually had no idea what a Santoryu swordsman was, but he didn't want to make Zoro annoyed by asking him. "I'm a martial artist!"

"Really?" Zoro said sarcastically.

Luffy caught the sarcasm, which hurt him fairly bad. "W-wait!" Luffy jumped over the fence and ran up to Zoro.

"H-hey! This is my yard! Get out of here!" Zoro snapped.

Luffy ignored him. "I'm also pretty good with rubber!" Luffy said with a smirk.

Zoro stopped. He stared at him for a while in confusion. "Did you just say that you're 'pretty good with rubber'? Do you really expect me to know what you're talking about? Leave me alone, _Luffy_. I'm busy."

"I can show you, if you'd like!" Luffy said quickly.

"I don't want to see your rubber friends!" Zoro snapped.

"Wha... What?" Luffy stopped. There was a long pause. "What in the world does that mean?" Luffy asked.

"J-just leave me alone!" Zoro growled.

Luffy felt hurt and rushed as Zoro began to walk into his house. "W-wait! Hold on! I just want to be your friend! We're neighbors, after all! It'd be so cool to be your friend, Zoro! Please, I don't have any friends!"

"No! I don't want to be your friend!" Zoro thundered, "Now, get lost." With that, Zoro slammed his front door behind him.

"Um..." Luffy hesitated outside Zoro's door. "That's a maybe, right? You'll think about it?"

There was silence.

"R-right...?"

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**Aw...! Poor Luffy! Don't worry, you'll get best buddies, soon! Just live by what Jaguar D. Saul taught us, and everything will be all right! :3 **

**I liked this chapter, how about you? ;) I'm really happy that I can put Sabo in my stories now! I can't wait to learn more about his personality so that I can write about him as best as I possibly can! **

**Well, I don't have a lot to say today! But... see y'all next time~! Bye~! :D**


	3. New World High

**All right! Chapter 3~! **

**Today at school, my _awesome_ History teacher let us read an original Mystery Play! You see, back in the Medieval ages, "Mystery" Plays were not "who done it" sort of mysteries. Instead, they focused on the Life of Jesus Christ because of that fact that most people in the Medieval ages could read. The normal people couldn't learn the life of Christ in Church, either, because the bible would be chanted in Latin. (I love Latin~! Excuse me, I'm a Latin geek! ;D) So... the normal people would be taught biblical stories through the _Theatre_~! **

**Anyways, we read the original script of "Noe's Arck", or how we call it today: Noah's Arc. It wasn't translated because it was already in English! It was a Medieval version of English, though. So they wrote like this: "_Deus_: Thy must builde an arck!" (Yeah... it all looked as it had been written by a person that had English as their 10th language... But it was really cool~! We're going to act out a Medieval play~! Excuse me, y'all, I'm a History geek~! ;P**

**For people that commented about the house description, I was thinking that you guys could have either read it or skimmed over it. I put it in there just for the people that wanted to know what their house looked like. I didn't want someone to be reading it and then find that they're unable to picture their actions because they didn't know how the house was laid out. Such as, I was telling my sister this story to see if it was good or not and she asked what the layout of the house was and what it looked like. I just presumed that there would be more people like that who were wondering: "What does their house look like?" So I put it in there, even if it was highly descriptive. But, yes. I understand what you're saying. Reading over it again, it seems a bit...annoying at some points. A bit repetitive. :)**

**OK, I've talked enough! Here's Chapter 3! Enjoy~!**

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_"Luffy!" a strong voice called out._

_"Help me!" _

_"You brat!" A strong force pounded against Luffy's face. It burned as the ache spread through his nerves. "You listen to us!" the voices growled gruffly at the top of their lungs as a sharp pain spread through all of his nerves. The pain made him scream in ache and fear. _

_"Help!" he called out again._

_"Luffy! Don't worry! I'm coming to get you, Luffy!" the voice called out again, "Luffy! Luffy! Wake up, Luffy!""_

"Luffy!" Ace's voice called out through the house.

Luffy gasped and jumped up. He grabbed his chest in shock. Luffy frantically whipped his head around back and forth. "Good," Luffy sighed in relief, "it was just a dream! I don't want that happening _ever _again!"

The young, black-haired teenager walked downstairs for breakfast. Today was Luffy's first day of high school. Sabo and Ace started collage in a week, which meant that he'd be left alone for a long time after that. "Today's breakfast isn't going to be very exciting today," Sabo said, "We only have toast and eggs. Sorry about that, Luffy. Don't worry, I'll go out to the store after I'm done with my job interview."

"Job interview?" Luffy stopped.

"Oh! Sorry about that, Luffy. I didn't tell you?" Sabo explained, "I'm getting a job for a large, top-secret organization."

"Top-secret?" Luffy gasped, "Can you tell me what's so secret about it? Is it owned by a vampire? Or is it something boring like being a cashier and you're too embarrassed to tell me that it's that, so you're telling me that it's top-secret? I'll find you at work, Sabo!"

"No! None of that!" Sabo laughed.

"Oh. My. God!" The black-haired teenager's eyes bolted open larger. "Is it...a mystery organization?"

Sabo blinked. Ace, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, slowly and loudly ate a crunchy, burnt piece of toast. A long silence filled the entire room. "Um... Yeah... You could call it something like that, Luffy..."

"No, I thought it _was_ a mystery organization!" Ace exclaimed. Luffy gasped and looked at Ace. Suddenly, he realized what he had said and quickly covered his mouth.

"Aw! Sabo! No fair!" Luffy complained, "You told Ace, but you can't tell me?"

"Luffy, it's for your own good."

"What do you mean by that, Sabo?"

"This is a very dangerous organization. It would only worry you if I told you, Luffy," the elder brother explained.

"What are you doing, Sabo? Going off to the military? What are you going to do? _Live_ there?" Luffy snapped.

There was a pause.

"Well," Sabo hesitated, "Actually, Luffy, I _was_ planning on living there. I don't know for how they'll need me to stay there without coming back, but I probably won't see you guys for a long time."

"OK, he did _not_ tell me that," Ace pointed out.

"What! You're going to be _living _there? What about us? What about your brothers, Sabo? How do you think that we feel, huh? I don't want you to go to that job interview, Sabo! I want you to stay here with us, your brothers!"

"Luffy," Sabo said softly, "You may think I'm being crazy, but this is a nice job. Someday, you'll understand."

"How can I when you won't even tell me about it?" Luffy barked. He picked up his things and quickly stormed out of the house.

"Ooh! Burn~!" Ace laughed.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Sabo snapped harshly.

"Oh, no. But you do! A job interview."

New World High was the most well-educated school in Grand Line City. They taught many different languages, history, science, art, and literature courses. They even taught martial arts! A few years after it was created, a competing school joined the district: Seifu Academy. It was a government-owned school with even higher learners, as well as more supporters. Their range of options to choose from was more strict than at New World High, where everything was loose and free. New World High's motto was_ "Live Freely and Achieve!"_ while Seifu Academy's motto was: _"Educate the Good and Destroy the Sinful!"_ The answer on which school seemed kinder is a bit obvious just from listening to their motto.

Luffy stood in front of the enormous school building. It was large, fancy, and intimidating. The people at the school were enormous people that reached heights of way over average. Truthfully, no one he saw looked very kind. They were smirking, laughing, and bullying the weaker, scrawnier students as if no one would be able to stop them. A normal teenager would have felt like running away from the school at the very sight of such harsh fights being started right in front of him, but Luffy isn't normal.

"Hello, friend~!" Luffy laughed gleefully. All of the other students looked at Luffy in awe. He was so happy and bouncy that it looked like he was made of rubber! He skipped through the hallways, not even being bothered by the strange looks he was getting.

Luffy looked down at the small piece of paper that he held in his hand. "Locker 56..." Luffy read aloud. He looked up to see a full locker in front of him with a miniature placard on the front with the number "56" on the front. Luffy grinned, "Yep! This is it!"

The black-haired teenager opened his locker and put all of his belongings inside of it. When he finished, a long-legged blonde man walked up and opened the locker on Luffy's right. Luffy looked at him. The man had blonde hair that covered right side of his face. His eyebrows were very unusual. Luffy breathed in a very strong, distinct smell: cigarette smoke. Luffy was shocked to see him with a cigarette hanging from his teeth.

"Um... Hello, locker buddy~!" Luffy greeted cheerfully.

The blonde-haired man stopped and looked up. He blinked at the happy teenager in front of him. "Hello," he said. The man had a low, annoyed voice when he spoke. Suddenly, he stopped. "W-wait. Are you going to be in _this _locker?"

"Uh... Yes! Yes, I am!" Luffy nodded.

"Oh! Oh, yes! Haha!" The man laughed in glee. He put his hand toward Luffy for a handshake, "I'm Sanji! It's nice to meet you! You see, there's this really annoying guy that is in the other locker next to you. He used to annoy me all the time! I don't even understand what I did, but he just doesn't like me. Thank you, kid! You've done something really great to me! I promise, since you've done this for me, if there's _anything _that you need, just tell me and I'll do it for you! I owe you one, kid!"

"I see," Luffy smiled.

Sanji paused. "Um... Since you're not going to tell me, then I'll just ask: What's your name?"

"Monkey D. Luffy."

"Oh... That's a good...name. It's so good, that you probably shouldn't tell it to the popular kids about it. You got it, Luffy?" Sanji said.

"Perfectly clear!"

"Good," Sanji grinned. "Now, I think that you should meet your new locker buddy, Luffy!" Sanji went over to the left locker and unlocked the lock. When he opened the locker, Luffy saw not a single paper or book in the locker. Even though it didn't have any school supplies inside it, didn't mean that it was empty. In the locker sat a sleeping figure of a familiar man: Roronoa Zoro. "Wake up, marimo~!"

"Z-Zoro!" Luffy gasped.

Zoro jolted up as he awoke from his dream. "S-sake? S-swords? Where's my-Oh my God, they're gone! My swords are- Oh, never mind. Here they are."

"What are you doing, baka?" Sanji asked Zoro.

"I knew it! You're blind in your left eye. You really shouldn't have done that hair-switch, dart-brow. It messes up your vision."

"Marimo, it's almost time for class! Go!" Sanji barked.

Zoro jumped up in shock, accidentally slamming his head against the top of the locker when he did. "Curly! Why didn't you tell me? You know that you can't get to class by yourself! You always get lost, baka!"

"Baka! I'm not the one that has no sense of direction, that's you!" Sanji growled.

"Shut it, Curly," Zoro snarled. With that, they both ran away.

As they were running away, Sanji called to Luffy from behind him, "Hey, Luffy! Follow us! We're in the same class!"

"O-OK!" Luffy agreed as he ran after them. His heart was beating, what would they think of him? _'Oh well,' _Luffy thought to himself, _'The only way to find out is to just go on and do it. What happens is what happens.'_

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**Yes~! The next chapter is going to be exciting! Wait until you meet...most of the characters~! Hehe! *excitement* Excuse me for making this one so long, or maybe you like that! I'm not sure! This, truthfully, isn't one of my favorite AU fanfictions, or fanfictions in general, of mine that I've written, but I'm actually really getting into this! Maybe it's your comments? I think that's it. :) Thank y'all for the great advice and compliments! Can't wait until next time, y'all! **


	4. Fellow Students

**Oh...God! Sorry that it took so long for this chapter to come out, guys! I had a MAJOR mind blank and it's been hard to continue. Good thing I have a sister who also likes to read this! She's been urging me on to write more because she likes it just as much as you guys do! :3**

**Anyhow...! (Pizza~! God... I want pizza so bad! I want to eat pizza while watching Megamind! Sorry, that was weird... I'll just continue with my...into...) Let's get this party started~!**

**I know I haven't been doing this but: DISCLAIMER: all of the chapters/fanfictions I have and will write belong to the Almighty Odacchi-_sensei_! **

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"Good...um...morning, class. Oh, and... uh... welcome back-possibly," a tall, tan teacher in the front of the room said. His voice was slurred and drowsy, his eyes droopy with bags under them. "I'd like to introduce... uh... hmm..." Suddenly, the teacher fell asleep all together.

"_Mr. Hie!_" the students called out his name at the stop of their lungs.

"What!" Mr. Hie gasped as he awoke from his short ... right. Children, I'd like to introduce our new student. He has come here all the way from... you know what, none of you care where he's from. Young man, please tell us your name and something about you."

Luffy looked up at the tall Mr. Hie from where he stood by his side and nodded at the teacher. He turned back to the large class and introduced himself, "Hello! My name is Monkey D. Luffy-"

Luffy was interrupted by the short giggles around the room. Luffy looked over at Sanji, who was staring up at him in worry. He was about to ask what he had done wrong, but he decided not to.

"Please, Mr. Monkey, continue," Mr. Hie urged.

"Um... All right," Luffy looked ahead and announced loudly, "And I'm going to be King of the Champions!"

His final sentence made the entire room, save for one person, burst out laughing. The one person that didn't laugh was an intimidating delinquent with a green hair and a wild, rocker-like style. He jumped up and gasped at the top of his lungs, "Wow!"

Everyone stopped and turned to the green-haired delinquent with annoyed glares. Another delinquent with red, spiky hair and goggles growled, "Seriously, Bartolomeo? What's wrong with you? That wasn't cool; it was stupid!"

"Oh..." Bartolomeo said quietly as he sat back down. When he looked back up at Luffy, however, he beheld him in utmost admiration.

"All right, Mr. Monkey," Mr Hie told him, "You can sit next to Mr. Roronoa."

Luffy looked over to see Zoro's eye widen in shock. He felt exuberance flowing throughout his veins as he ran over to see desk. The black-haired teenager wanted very dearly to become friends with Zoro. "Hello, neighbor! Isn't it funny that we're next to each other in almost _everything_?" Zoro glared at Luffy. His eyes did not reflect Luffy's own happiness.

Feeling a little hurt by Zoro's stare, Luffy looked off at the other people in the room. In front of him was a pretty, orange-haired girl. To his left was Zoro, and to his right was a dark-skinned teenager with an extremely long nose. The long-nosed boy was doodling something in the margin of his notebook paper. Luffy blinked and leaned over a bit to see that he was drawing a tall superhero-like man. The character stood tall and proud with a handsome, red cape flying behind him. On his face was an odd, yellow mask with a very long nose poking out of the nose-hole.

"Who's that?" Luffy whispered to him.

The teenager jumped in fright, darting his head over to see Luffy's grinning face. "W-who's this?" the long-nosed boy repeated, pointing at the superhero. "Oh, his name is Sogeking."

"Sogeking?" Luffy cocked his head to one side. "Is he a superhero? He kind of looks like it in the drawing from the way he's standing."

"Well, yes. Yes, he is a superhero," he answered, grinning wide.

"Oh! What comic's he from?"

"None, actually... well, not yet, at least," the teenager replied, "I made him. He's my own character with his own plot and his own design. He's the King of the Snipers and he originates from the great Sniper Island!"

"Ooh~! Sounds cool!" Luffy gasped. "And where's Sniper Island, exactly?"

"Well... it's, uh..." the young artist hesitated. Finally, he thought of something, "Sniper Island is in your heart!"

The words echoed through Luffy's mind. "In...my...heart?" It sounded so beautiful, so magical. It filled his heart with such joy to discover that something that sounded so awesome was inside it.

"That's right!" the teenager whispered back, "In your heart."

"Does that mean that awesome dude on the paper," Luffy asked as he began to tear up, "lives inside me, too?"

The long-nosed teenager looked down at the drawing. He stared at it for a while before smiling softly at the superhero portrayed on the thin piece of paper. "Yeah! Sogeking lives in us all giving us the courage to do the things that we'd be too scared to do ourselves. He's the hero that takes over when you don't have the courage or strength to do it by yourself for fear of being to weak. He shows us that there is strength in the weak!"

"Wow!" Luffy gasped. He looked down at his chest. "I didn't know that my heart held such _epic_ power!"

"Oh!" The long-nosed boy put a hand forward for a handshake, "My name's Usopp! I'm going to be just like Sogeking one day!"

Luffy shook his hand. "I hope you accomplish that goal, Usopp!"

From behind the two young teenagers, two girls that ranked very high in the class status gossiped from behind them. One of the girls with long, black, wavy hair and dark green eyes. Makeup covered all of her features: she was determined to keep up with her 'natural born looks'. "Ugh! Look at those two! And after I started thinking that the new guy was a little cute he goes off and says such an idiotic thing... What do you think, Hancock?" The girl looked over at Hancock, the other woman sitting next to her.

"Hmm? Oh, yes. I can totally see where you're coming from, Alvida," Hancock nodded. Alvida and Hancock were known throughout the entire school for their 'never-ending beauty'. Every single man in the entire school was head over heels for the both of them. They were snobby and rude with stubborn, powerful attitudes. Whatever they wanted, they got. For most of the time, the two girls were two friends. When they weren't friends, it was when they were fighting over dominance over the school, or in large quarrels about which one was more beautiful. But, for the most part, they were friends, for Hancock didn't care about men one bit while Alvida did. As long as Hancock let Alvida get every single one of the men for herself, the two women remained as friends.

"I mean, looking at him, Hancock!" Alvida said, "He's puny and scrawny. There's no possible way that he's going to be strong."

"And 'King of the Champions'? What does that mean?" Hancock scoffed.

"Exactly!" Alvida agreed. "The best thing about him is his name! It's outrageous! What kind of surname is 'Monkey'? It sounds stupid!"

"I know," Hancock nodded, "He's my neighbor. He moved in about a week or so ago."

"Really?" Alvida snorted, "I'm sorry for you! He must be so obnoxious!"

"Well..." Hancock stopped, remembering how nice and friendly he had been to her, "He's..."

"He's what?"

"He's actually quite sweet, Alvida...!" Hancock hesitated.

"Wha-_Excuse_ me?" Alvida hissed, "Did you just give him a compliment? What's wrong with you? It's plain to see that he's stupid! How could you like him, Hancock?"

"What! No, no! I never said that I liked him, I was just saying that he was sweet!" Hancock defended.

Alvida paused before turning away, not in the mood for an argument with Hancock. "Whatever..." she muttered.

Suddenly, the door slammed open, making Mr. Hie jump in shock. Everyone looked over to see a man standing in the doorway. He was an enormous man with a long, white, U-shaped mustache and brown hair. The man had wrinkles near his eyes and a black bandanna covering his brown hair. Mr. Hie gasped at the sight of him and exclaimed, "Principal Newgate! You surprised me!"

"Kuzan-I mean, Mr. Hie... There's going to be a visit in about a month from the Seifu Academy! The headmaster there is going to come and watch us to see if we're doing all right," Principal Newgate replied.

Mr. Hie's face turned bright red in anger. He pounded his hand down on the table loudly and exclaimed, "Darn! In a month? That's not enough time for me to get out of the country... They're probably tracking me down at this very moment, wondering why I, the former Vice Principal of Seifu Academy, ran away so quickly. Honestly, how could I remain there when there was that stingy Akainu Sakazuki always bothering me _and_ the students?"

"Kuzan," Principal Newgate whispered to get his attention, "You're talking to yourself, again."

"Ah! Darn it! I always do that!"

"No, you always randomly start sleeping in the middle of lessons," the orange-haired girl in front of Luffy joined in.

"I don't need your comments..." Mr. Hie murmured coldly.

"Well," Principal Newgate said, "that was all that I came here to say, so good-bye students!" With that, Principal Newgate disappeared in a surprisingly quick way for a man of his age and size.

After five more minutes of class, Mr. Hie released them for their next class. Luffy was about to get up before the long-nosed boy stopped him. "Wait up!" he called to him.

Luffy looked over at the teenager in confusion. "Is there something wrong?"

Usopp smiled up at Luffy, "You're a pretty cool guy... Luffy, is it?"

"Yes!" Luffy nodded, "You're cool, too, Usopp!"

"Do you want to be friends?" Usopp asked.

Luffy felt his heart stop in happiness. No one had ever asked him to be friends. "F-friend?" Luffy repeated.

"Yeah!" Usopp nodded.

There was a long silence. Finally, Luffy jumped forward and clutched Usopp into an enormous hug, making him go a few inches off the ground. "I love to! Oh my God! This is so friggin' exciting! I'll be so loyal to you, Usopp! You'll see! I'll be the best friend you've ever had, like ever!"

"OK, Luffy!" Usopp coughed as his face started to turn purple, "Luffy...! You're too strong...! You're stopping the blood flow in my body...! Lemme go!"

Luffy gasped and dropped Usopp to the ground as if he had been hugging him lightly. "Oh, sorry, Usopp. That happens a lot. Everyone tells me that I'm stronger than I look, and it's true!"

"Seriously, man!" Usopp said as he stretched his back out, "What do you do to get like that?"

"I'm a professional martial artist! My grandpa started teaching me martial arts when I was seven years old... Well, five years old, to be precise. I've been fighting for twelve years!"

"Twelve years? Since you were five!" Usopp gasped, "You're like a child prodigy of martial arts or something!"

"Yep!"

"For God's sake! Get out of my classroom!" Mr. Hie barked gruffly from below his desk, "I'm trying to take a nap before third period and the next class comes in here! You're going to be late! Get lost!"

"Yes, Mr. Hie!" Usopp saluted. Usopp turned to Luffy and said, "Come on, Luffy! I'll lead you to Science Class!"

"Science Class?" Luffy repeated. Finally, he smiled a wide, toothy grin, "OK!"

* * *

**Did you guys notice how epic Zoro's surname is? "Roronoa". That's so awesome! Zoro gets cooler every single time you mention him. I'm not a Zoro fan or anything, but it's just a true fact. You just can't deny it: Zoro's just epic.**

**For those Hancock fans out there who don't like me making her a rude person, don't worry: she gets better! ;)**

**Also, for those who were wondering in Chapter 2 when it was mentioned that Luffy was also the lost descendant of King Pakal the Great, if you were wondering who the heck that was, I'll tell you right now! His full name was K'inich Janaab Pakal, sometimes his name was spelled at "Pacal" as well. His name means "Sun Shield". Entering onto the throne at age 12, he died at the age of 80 years old after ruling for about 68 years. King Pakal the Great was one of the most influential leaders of Mayan culture. He ruled over the Mayan "city" Palenque, which is also the place where some of the most recognized temples of the Mayan world as we know it today. **

**King Pakal believed that he was a god with ancestors that lived in the heavens up above. He thought that when he died, his spirit would climb up to the stars and live with his ancestors up in the sky with them. This is representing from his eerie, yet beautiful, sarcophagus lid, which shows him being reborn as the God of Life, shown by the World Tree growing out of him. This led to Erich von Däniken's belief of that the lid proved the theory of "ancient astronauts", or the belief that the Mayans were helped or were connected with extraterrestrial beings. Däniken said that the sarcophagus lid and other ancient artifacts left behind were just to wonderful and too beautiful to be thought up by a normal human being. Everything about the Mayan's way of thinking and living was just too complex and extraordinary for anyone to ever comprehend. No man alive today probably would have been able of think up something so great that they discovered.**

**Yet, what really makes people wonder about ancient astronauts are the Rock Drawings in Valcamonica. These depict strange beings in odd uniforms. They very closely relate back to modern day astronauts. They appear to have round lids covering their heads. There are about 200,000 to 300,000 symbols and inscriptions of these strange designs all of the cave walls.**

**So... yeah. That's it for my alien lesson for today! I don't believe that the Mayans were helped by the aliens... they were just awesome people! :)**

**Anyways, see you next time! :) I'll publish Chapter 5 faster this time, don't worry! ;) **


	5. Mr Akagami

**Welcome~! :)**

**I'm going to just sit back and enjoy myself with this chapter for today! It's Spring Break, so I can do whatever I want (kind of)! So...I don't have very much to say, so I'll just skip straight to the chapter.**

**Oh! And just in case any of you were wondering, Mr. Hie is Aokiji, by the way. I named him Mr. "Hie" because his devil fruit name is the "Hie Hie no Mi", or the "Ice Ice Fruit". Mr. Hie taught English-I mean, Japanese Class.**

**DISCLAIMER****: Oda-_sensei _owns all of that are featured in this fanfiction!**

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Luffy sat down on the stool under the desk in the Biology room. A tan skinned teacher stood in front of the room. He had noticeably red hair, three scars crossing over his left eye, and only one arm. The red-haired teacher had a long, black cape draped over his suit underneath. The only strange thing about his attire was - of course, his cape - but also the fact that his dress pants were rolled up, his dress shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and he was wearing brown sandals. From the rest of his appearance, it was plain to see that he was a very laid back teacher. Luffy smiled wide at the sight of the teacher.

A student walked up to Luffy and sat down in the chair next to him. Luffy looked over to see a pretty, orange-haired girl sitting next to him. She had deep, chocolate brown eyes, golden earrings, slightly pale skin, and her already noticeable wavy, long, orange hair. "Hello!" Luffy greeted, "I'm Luffy!"

"I know who you are," the girl replied, "How could I not after that embarrassing speech you made in front of the entire class?"

"What? Embarrassing?" Luffy repeated in confusion.

"Yes! Why else do you think everyone laughed at you?" she barked.

"W-well, I didn't know that they were laughing at _me_," he defended.

The girl looked at him in annoyance. "Who else would they be laughing? How could they not laugh at the strange boy with the crazy ambition and weird name?" she scoffed.

"W-weird name? Weird name!" Luffy gasped. "My name isn't weird! It may sound like an animal, but it represents family pride! I wouldn't change it for the world! And, by the way, I don't care if they laugh at me because I said what I wanted to do. I chose to want to do that, so I should be expecting to hear rude comments. It doesn't mean that I should get dragged down by them, though!"

The girl rolled her eyes and muttered to herself, "You're too happy... You obviously haven't experienced enough to realize that being hidden is better than being out in the open, Luffy..."

Luffy narrowed his eyes and frowned at her. She was annoying him; no matter what he said, she still continued to see what he saw in such a blind way. He looked up at the seating chart that was drawn on the chalkboard to see that the girl sitting next to him was called 'Nami'. "Um..." Luffy looked at Nami in silence. He felt strange. Maybe there first conversation together shouldn't end in an argument? "Your name is very pretty," Luffy said to her. He wasn't trying to be romantic, just trying to be kind.

Nami blinked and looked up at him. "What? Me?"

Luffy nodded, "You else would I be talking to?"

She looked away. "No one, I guess..."

There was a long pause. "Um... W-who gave you that name?" Luffy asked. He needed to get on her good side if they were going to sit next to each other.

Nami's eyes softened but her frown remained. She slowly looked up at Luffy as she said quietly, "My... My mother gave me that name, of course. There wouldn't be anyone else to give me that name."

"Your mother?" He paused. Luffy had never met his mother. "What was she like?"

"Oh... She was-"

"All right, class!" The teacher announced, "It's time to start Biology Class!" All of the students turned to the front of the classroom to face the red-haired Biology teacher. "Oh! It looks like we have a new student-Why, it's you!"

"Shanks?" Luffy gasped.

"Luffy?" Shanks gasped as well.

"Hi! It's been so long!" Luffy jumped out of his chair with a large smile on his face.

"Now, now, Luffy," Shanks calmed him down, "as happy as I am to see you as well, you cannot jump out of your teacher. And you can't call me 'Shanks', either, Luffy. You have to call me Mr. Akagami!"

"Oh... Sorry Sh-I mean, Mr. Akagami," Luffy apologized.

"That's all right, Luffy," Shanks grinned.

When Luffy was a small child, he had lived in a small cafe with his friend, Makino. Makino was a very kind, young woman that took care of him when he was younger. Shanks had lived in next door to the cafe and would often come to eat there with his friends. Ever since Luffy first met Shanks, he had always been awestruck by the red-haired man's words. Whatever Shanks said, Luffy would obey and remember them. Thousands of things happened, and Luffy would never forget the things that Shanks did for him. After living there for two years, Shanks finally moved away and gave Luffy the straw hat that Luffy owned.

"All right, class!" Shanks said with a grin, "I'd like you all to be very kind to Luffy; he's a very good friend of mine, so don't mistreat him!"

Luffy giggled. Excitement flowed through his veins as he repeated in his mind that Shanks was going to be his new Biology teacher. Shanks was such a nice person; it was so amazing to see him again!

"He knows Mr. Akagami?" Hancock whispered in confusion to her Biology partner and friend, Marguerite.

"I suppose so," Marguerite replied. Marguerite had short, unruly blonde hair. She was thin and slender with light-colored skin. Marguerite, truthfully, was more of a friend to Hancock than Alvida was. Alvida was cruel and judgmental, while Marguerite was always kind to Hancock, no matter what she did.

"He's such a weirdo..." Hancock muttered.

"H-he seems nice to me, Hancock-_sama_," Marguerite stuttered, worried about if Hancock would think poorly of her after she said something like that.

Hancock looked down at Marguerite in disapproval. "He's a _man_, Marguerite. Don't forget it."

Marguerite gasped and nodded quickly. "Y-yes, Hancock-_sama_!"

"Hey!" Shanks called out to the two girls, "What are your names?" Shanks pointed to Hancock and Marguerite making them jump, realizing that they were caught talking in the middle of class.

"Um... My name is Hancock," Hancock replied.

"And I'm Marguerite," the other girl said.

"Is there something important that you are talking about back there?" Shanks asked them, "If there is, I'd just _love _to hear about it! Secrets are great!"

The two girls hesitated. There was _no_ way that they were going to say that they were making fun of Luffy behind his back. That's just not something that you admit so bluntly, after all. "No, it wasn't anything important..." Hancock said.

"Really?" Shanks' eyes widened in an attempt to seem shocked. "Well, then, if it wasn't all that important, why were you talking about it to each other during class? Surely, you'd know that that's very disrespectful?"

"Y-yes, we do," Marguerite murmured quietly.

"Well, Marguerite," Shanks said, "If you knew that, then why'd you do it?"

"I don't know...?"

"You don't-Ah! Well, then that's why we're at school: to know." Shanks suddenly went off on a tangent about his previous life, "You see, when I was a kid, I had this friend who never paid attention-his name was Buggy, by the way. Since he was my friend, I followed in his footsteps and I didn't pay attention...at all! With the help of my friend-and my blind teacher (literally, she _was _blind)-I didn't learn! You guys want to know what happened to me?"

There was a pause.

"I became," Shanks hesitated to add more suspense, "_stupid_!"

"Why are you teaching us, then?" Nami asked.

"Because I need money-I mean, because I love you guys!" Shanks said. "So, that's my story! All right, now, let's get back to business! I didn't do this last week, so, now that we have a new student, I'll give you guys a project! What we are learning about first in Biology is the creatures that inhabit water: freshwater and saltwater. You will all get into groups of five and create a project about any water creature of your choice, but you all have to come up with a compromise, all right? And before you guys start getting any ideas, _I_ will be the one creating the groups. So, I don't want to hear any complaints about who is in your group! Yet... if there really is a problem, then I'll see what I can do about it. I wouldn't want you guys to feel like you're being dragged through this assignment! Make friends and try to have fun, OK? All right!"

Luffy looked over at Usopp, who turned out be looking at him, as well. They smiled at each other in hopes that they would be paired in the same group. Having a friend was so exciting! "Group 3... Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp!"

The two teenagers looked back at each other with large smiles. Zoro and Sanji glared at each other from across the room while Nami sighed and rested her chin on her fist. _'Great... It looks like I'm paired with more weirdos again...! Oh well, maybe this Luffy guy will actually me smart? After all, aren't weird kids usually the smart ones? They're called nerds, right?'_ Nami thought to herself, _'If they are smart, then I can possibly get out of this with a pretty good grade! Just try not to get too involved with the project and nothing will mess up, Nami!'_

After Shanks was done announced the groups, they assembled together. Luffy and Usopp high-fived while laughing proudly, "What's up, man?"

"I can't believe I'm in a group with you morons..." Zoro muttered.

"Oh, be quiet, marimo!" Sanji growled, "We're not the morons, you are!"

"You got something that you'd like to say, dartbrow?" the green-haired teenager snarled.

"I think that I just said it!"

"Hey, Zoro! We're in the same group!" Luffy greeted happily.

"Don't remind me, kid... It's bad enough that I'm paired with Swirly here, but now I've got you to deal with, too! My life is never going to end, is it? I bet when I die it's going to be long and painful...! Everything is leading up to that day..."

"Aw, don't be so morbid!" Luffy grinned. Luffy looked over at Nami. He smiled again and said happily, "Hey there, partner! Looks like we're in the same group, huh? Do you have any plans for what we should do for this project?"

_'Polyps can be strangely interesting,' _Nami answered in her head. Instead of saying what was on her mind, she lied, "No. I'm not very talented when it comes to the sea."

"Huh?" Luffy blinked in confusion, "R-really? Your name means 'wave', though! You look pretty smart to me!"

"I don't like participating..." Nami answered in a monotone accent.

Luffy said quieter, "Well, we have to work as a team on this, Nami. You can't just say that you're going to sit back and let us do it on our own when we know that you know how to do this, too."

"What are you doing, interrogating me?" Nami snapped.

"Oh! No! I wasn't trying to! I'm sorry. I was just saying that even if you don't know, you can at least _try _to participate," Luffy rephrased his sentence.

"Didn't sound like it to me..." Nami muttered.

"All right, class!" Shanks called out, "Class is now over! Remember to go to the library and research more on your creature if you're interested and to get more information! This is due on the 2nd next month! Feel free to ask me any questions you have about your creature if you need help! I'm free!" Shanks waved to people as they left.

Luffy watched as his groups muttered things like 'I'm so glad to be out of that' or 'that was so awful'. It sort of hurt when they begrudgingly walked away with irritated faces on. He wanted to be a good friend to all of them, but they didn't seem like very nice people. Luffy narrowed his eyes in determination. Well, Luffy was naturally Luffy, and whenever he wanted something, he wouldn't stop until he had it, even if that meant changing a person so much that they were almost completely unrecognizable.

* * *

**This is getting fun! :D What's Luffy going to do, huh? Well, you'll just have to wait and see! ;)**

**I based Shanks' teacher-character in here off of my awesome science teacher! (He's really cool!) I'm not going to say his name just because I want to leave him ****anonymous. :) You'll like Shanks, you'll see!**

**Luffy's going to make everything better in here, don't y'all worry! ;D They're only jerks temporarily! If you really think about it, Luffy changed their lives so much. He's going to it again in this book! (I can't wait to add Choppy in here! :D He's going to be so adorable! You're gonna love him!)**

**Anyways, I'm gonna go! I have my own books to write, after all! ;) I hope you liked it! See you next chapter! :D**


	6. Mystery Meat

**Hello, everyone! All of your reviews are so inspiring! I just have to keep writing more! I'm brewing up some new stories! You guys are going to absolutely love them! (I hope...! D: )**

**I don't have much to say today... (That's also because I just wrote a bunch of stuff but forgot to click "Save" so it just deleted everything I wrote... so, I've got to start over...which really sucks...) So, let's get started! **

**_DISHCLAMAH:_ All of the characters- Wait... wait a second...  
**

**Let me try again...**

**_DISCLAIMER: _All of the characters in this story are owned by Oda-_sensei_.  
**

* * *

"Where are we going next?" Luffy asked Usopp. They had already been to Math Class and History Class. The Math teacher was an odd man whose name was Mr. 3, who Luffy referred to as just 'San'. It made sense, after all: the Japanese word for three was '_san_' and the Japanese suffix for 'man' is '-_san_'. The History teacher was a kind, old man named Professor Clover. He had the best haircut in Luffy had ever seen. It was in the shape of a clover. He was probably the best sponsor for St. Patrick's Day that has ever lived!

"Lunch," Usopp replied.

"Wha-Really!" Luffy gasped in excitement, "I didn't know that they served lunch at these places!"

"Yes, really," Usopp answered in confusion. It was insane how excited he was getting. "You didn't know that they served lunch here, Luffy? I'm pretty sure that they sure that other schools serve lunch. What do you think they'd do? Starve us? Where did you go to school before this?"

"Oh, I didn't go to school before this," Luffy said, "I was home-schooled by a family friend, Dadan. My brothers and I were taught by her because my grandpa wanted us to become strong soldiers."

"Soldiers?" Usopp repeated.

"Yes!" Luffy nodded. "My grandpa wanted the 'best' for us, so he taught us and trained us our entire lives how to be strong navy soldiers. He didn't want us to have the exposure to 'this sort of environment' as he phrased it."

"If your grandfather wanted you to become a navy soldier, than why are you here instead of Seifu Academy?" Usopp asked, "This school is sort of rebellious. They're not really on the side of the government... They teach martial arts regularly, too."

"Oh!" Luffy explained, "Well, my older brother, Sabo, bought the money to get me into this school. My grandpa doesn't know that I go to this high school. I haven't seen him in years!"

"How do you think he'll feel when he figures out that you're going to this school, Luffy?" the long-nosed teenager asked.

"He'll be mad."

"What are you going to do, then?"

"When he realizes? Why, I'd do the safest thing possible, of course: _run_!" Luffy exclaimed. "Oh, and I noticed something very strange here! When I got here, I saw some kids just beating each other up as if it was normal! What's up with that? It's insane!"

"Oh... Well, Luffy, they're acting like it's normal is because it is," Usopp explained, "People are usually beat up by bullies here. You've gotta be careful, Luffy! They're strong! They can seriously hurt you, too!"

"If that's so, then I can see why Grampy didn't want me coming here!" Finally, the two arrived at the cafeteria. It was an enormous, white-painted building with a long booth on the right where old ladies were serving food to the high school students. "Oh, wow!" Luffy gasped, "This place is so sugei~!"

They walked up to the cafeteria counter, grabbed a tray, and waited for their turn to get their food. Luffy grabbed his stomach when he felt and heard it growl loudly. It was extremely difficult to wait patiently for Luffy when he was so close to the food that he could see and smell it. Looking around, he decided that the only way to wait patiently was to occupy himself with something else. Luffy looked at the relatively tall teenager in front of him. He had tattoos that covered his forearms, hands, and fingers. He had a goatee and dark blue hair that was hidden under a fluffy white hat with black dots on the bottom of it; the only part of his hair that was visible was his goatee and his sideburns. The man spent his time busy texting on his phone as he waited for his food.

"Um..." Luffy tapped on the teenager's shoulder. "Hello!" he greeted happily.

The man turned around to look at the black-haired teenager. His face wore a bored frown as he said in an uninterested, low, monotone voice, "What?"

"What are you doing?" Luffy asked him.

"I'm texting to a friend of mine," the teenager replied.

"Are you allowed to be on your phone at school?" Luffy asked in confusion. _'I didn't know! If we are, that's awesome!' _Luffy thought to himself.

"Are you allowed to talk to me?" the man challenged.

"Oh... I see..." Luffy sunk down, realizing that he probably shouldn't have started a conversation with the dark-blue haired man. Men with tattoos on their fingers that spell out the word 'DEATH' should not be trusted...

Suddenly, a tall teenager with red, spiky hair and square goggles wrapped onto his forehead jumped up from in front of the teenager. He laughed with a smirk on as he teased them, "Aw, don't worry, new guy! This guy has always been a pain. He's like this to everyone. You should try being nice to people, Law! If you are, maybe I'll stop telling people about the thing you hate most in the world!"

Law sighed impatiently. His expression was not visible through the brim of his hat which now covered his eyes. "Why am I always stuck with people like this? I don't think that I ever did anything to deserve such a punishment... This school is too crazy for me. Everyone I meet here is insane. I mean, look over there."

Law pointed to a group of extremely muscular men with beards and mustaches wearing the female uniform. They skipped through the cafeteria with their fingers curled in their palms, their arms raised up to head level. As they giggled, sparkles flew behind them as they ran, giggling a word that sent chills down everyone's spines, especially one certain man. The word the called out was a name, "Sanji-_kun_~!" After they called that out, there was a scream that echoed through the cafeteria. "Don't worry, Sanji-_kun_, we're coming for you~! There is no need to scream anymore~!"

"What. The. Heck," Luffy said.

"Amazing. Now, I have someone that _actually _understands," Law said in a mellow tone. His accent was so mellow that even his interjections didn't have any emotions.

"Are they even allowed to where the female uniform? I mean, really!" Kid asked in disbelief.

"I-I don't even know anymore. I don't know what to think. This world is just too insane nowadays," Law said.

"_Next!_" The old lunch lady called out in a rough voice.

"C'mon, Law! Let's go, dude! It's our turn, man!" Kid called out to him, waving his hand in a gesture to come closer.

"No, please. Go ahead of me. I don't want to order my lunch with you. It'll make me be sick of the food. Even the thought of ordering lunch with you makes me sick to my stomach," growled Law.

"It'll be fine! C'mon over here, dude!"

"No, just go. Go away."

"I said, _Come 'ere!_"

"Gah...! No...! Kid...! I can't breath, stop strangling me...! Let go of me...! I can't breath with your arm around my neck, Kid...! I can't...! Gah...!"

Luffy and Usopp watched as the two men chose their lunches and left the counter. "_Next!_" Luffy ran up to the counter and looked around the choices as if he was a child looking into a candy store. "Oh, wow! There are so many choices!" Suddenly, Luffy stopped when he saw a large loaf of meat on a white plate. "Excuse me? What's this meat made of? I see orange and green spots in it," Luffy asked the lunch lady.

The lunch lady shrugged.

Luffy bulged his eyes. "Oh-" He looked at Usopp. "Oh my!" He looked back at the meat. "You mean that it's," Luffy said as he turned to the lunch lady again, "mystery meat?"

"I... I guess so, yeah," the lunch lady answered in a tone that sounded as if she was annoyed at how long he was taking.

"W-wow! I can't even...! I mean, I've heard of mystery powder, mystery islands, and mystery animals, but never have I ever heard of a mystery meat! This is just amazing! I've got to try it!" Luffy picked up a piece of the mystery meat and also took about everything else. Usopp didn't take too long choosing what he wanted for lunch; most of the food, he said, was just junk.

"Come on, Luffy! I'll show you where I sit!" Usopp walked out of the cafeteria to a red-colored table directly outside of the entrance to the cafeteria. It was under the shade of a large oak tree. It really was quite beautiful under the tree, leaves gently falling down to the ground, sunlight being filtered through the branches, and the quiet laughter of people at other tables. Three girls already sat at the table, two blonde haired girls and a blue haired girl. One of the girls had short, blonde hair with pale skin; the other blonde haired girl styled her hair in a ponytail that stuck straight up with a sphere on the end making it look like she had antennae. (**Author's Note: Wow... I don't know how else to describe them but by their hair... Um... Yeah... I'll just try to finish this paragraph quickly, then...**) The blue haired girl had long blue hair.

"Hello, Usopp!" The girls greeted. They sat down at the table. The blue-haired girl looked at Luffy before asking Usopp, "Who's this, Usopp? Is this the new guy?"

"Yep!" Usopp nodded. He grabbed Luffy's shoulder as he introduced him, "Guys, this is Luffy! He's my new friend!"

The short-haired girl smiled at him. "Any friend of Usopp's is a friend of mine! It's nice to meet you, Luffy!"

"Luffy, let me introduce my friends to you!" Usopp pointed to the short-haired girl, "This is Kaya, my childhood friend. She's very nice! Her family is a very wealthy family which is how she was able to come to this school. Don't worry, she doesn't brag about her money. Like I said, she's very nice." He pointed to the blue-haired girl, "This is Vivi! She's Kaya's friend, and also very kind. She is a descendant from a royal, Egyptian family, so that means that she's also very rich. Vivi often travels to Egypt since she still has relatives there, which I think is super cool." Lastly, he motioned to the blonde-haired girl with the strange-hairstyle, "This is Conis. She comes from a village high up in the mountains; it's so high up there, you could say that you're walking on the clouds! Conis isn't rich or anything, but she's still really nice. You're going to love all of these girls, Luffy! Trust me, they're amazing!"

Luffy nodded in thanks to Usopp. It helped a little for him to introduce them, but he was still nervous. Being crowded around girls his same age still made him freaked out; it wasn't that he liked them or anything, it's just that this was the first time being around girls his same age. What were girls like? Were they exactly like men? Did they like to fight, hunt for bugs, and go on crazy adventures like he did? _'You shouldn't treat them like they're different, Luffy! They're just like guys,' _he tried to tell himself.

Vivi smiled at Luffy and began to start a conversation with him, "So, Luffy, do you like this school?"

"It's very nice! I've never been a place so large!" Luffy exclaimed in excitement, "I especially like that you have things like mystery meat! I've heard of so many things that are mysterious, but never mystery _meat_! I love meat; it's the best!"

Vivi laughed nervously, "Yeah... Luffy, I can see that you like it, but I don't suggest that you eat that..."

"What? Why?" he looked down at his mystery meat, "It looks fun!"

"No, no, I know that you might feel that way, but it doesn't taste fun. Trust me, Luffy. You don't want to eat that: it's bad for your health."

"F-for my health? Oh my God! T-they serve things here that can kill you?" Luffy gasped.

Vivi laughed. "Oh, no! It doesn't kill, it just makes you feel awful next period. You won't be able to concentrate. The only reason why kids eat this is to get out school because it gives you... well, food poisoning," Vivi replied.

Usopp, Vivi, Kaya, and Conis watched at Luffy's tan face went pale (**like a vampire! Sorry 'bout that intrusion... I'll leave now...**). Luffy grabbed the mystery meat and threw it into the trash can that was about ten feet away screaming, "_They're trying to kill me with the thing I love most in the world!_"

"Wow...! That was a really good throw, Luffy! Like...crazy good!" Usopp exclaimed.

"Thank you!" Luffy smiled, "I'm good at pretty much anything that's athletic, actually!"

"Can you fight?" Vivi asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Then you'd probably like the Martial Arts Club, Luffy," Conis said. "Why don't you sign up?"

"Martial Arts Club? That sounds awesome!" Luffy exclaimed, "How do I sign up?"

Vivi pointed over to a board at the front of the school. "That's the Club sign up sheet. Clubs have just started this week. There are some fliers for certain clubs tacked up onto the board. They're is a sign-up sheet up there, as well. On the sign-up sheet you write your name, your locker number, and the club that you're interested in joining. For athletic clubs, such as the Martial Arts Club, there are tryouts. On the flier explaining about the club, it will say when and where the tryouts will be. You're not allowed to leave the cafeteria grounds during lunch time though, so you can probably look at that stuff after school. Just ask us if you need any help, OK, Luffy?"

Luffy nodded, "I will, thanks!"

Finally, lunch was over. Luffy waved good-bye to Vivi, Kaya, and Conis, feeling proud that he had so many nice friends already. It was already his first day, and even Luffy knew that he was lucky to get so many nice friends on the first day, or any at all! "Follow me, Luffy! I'll show you to where the next class is!"

"Huh? And what's that?"

"Shop Class! The teacher is great; you'll love him!" Usopp replied.

"Shop Class?" Luffy repeated. What was that? Was it a class teaching you how to shop? That was for girls, not Luffy...

* * *

**BEST ENDING EVER~! Nah, I'm kidding. I think that this is pretty much the worst ending I can do, but I got nothing left. I wanted you guys to meet the Shop Class teacher in Chapter 7. He's great, you'll recognize him right away! ;)**

**THIS CHAPTER WAS SO FRIGGIN' FRUSTRATING! I had to restart this chapter two times! I know that that doesn't seem like a lot, but for the amount that I had written when I accidentally clicked SOMETHING to make it go to a different page and not save everything that I had written, it is a lot! :( The next time I write this, I'm going to write it on Word and then paste it in here! :( Maybe then I'll have it better!**

**See you guys later! :) Bye~!**


	7. Flambe Is Dangerous!

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SABO~! :D :D :D :D It's Sabo's birthday, y'all~! March 20th~!**

**I'm feeling pretty good today! I got... moderately far in the serial I'm writing this week! I have the first chapter done and two pages written in the second one. But... Yeah. I'm farther ahead than I was a long time ago!**

**Also, I just wanted to point out that I know that the suffix ending '-_san_' isn't only for men, that it's for everyone. I just found it easier and shorter to say that it was the suffix for mister. Besides, I didn't say that it was only for men~! ;) **

**So, sorry, guys. But, I just want to say somethin'! So, here I am and I search up "food", and you wanna know what pops up? Burgers! Everywhere! I mean, what about "food" makes my computer immediately think "burger"? Is it that I'm American? So, that automatically means that when I think of "food", I think of burgers? Or does my computer just simply enjoy burgers? I mean, I guess that there was one pancake...maybe a few fruits and vegetables, but I saw like...seven burgers show up! And that's not even counting the related things! Never mind... This has been: "My Rant!" (Now, looking up the word "dessert", now that's a different story P: Can't go wrong when you look that word up!)**

**Other than that, I have nothing else to say! :) I hope you enjoy it!**

**Oh! Also, for those that don't know, Shop Class is a building class. It's like Workshop Class, or somethin'. :) Enjoy~!**

**(I don't have to put the disclaimer, right? You guys already know... I've already said it in the other chapters...)**

* * *

"Welcome, class," exclaimed an extremely tall, powerful man, "to suuuuuuper Shop Class!" He had a blue, rock-and-roll hairstyle, an unprofessional Hawaiian shirt on, and-strangely-a speedo. "I'll be your teacher for this suuuuuuper year! Since I don't like all that formal junk, all you brothers and sisters can call me Franky! Just think of me like your big, ol' bro, all right? Suuuuuuper~!"

Luffy sat in awe as he watched the strange teacher dance around in front of the class. Usopp laughed at him and whispered in his ear, "What do you think of Franky, Luffy? He's a little queer, ain't he?"

"Yes, he is...! But... he's...so cool! Is he... like... a robot? I mean, look at his nose!" Luffy whispered. "Is it made of metal?"

"Ah, yes," Usopp nodded, "Most of Franky is. He's a cyborg, see. I've been friends with him for a long time, so I know. When he was a kid, he was hit by a train, breaking almost every bone in his entire body. Since he was a good inventor, it was easy for him to fix his body up."

"Really? So he is a robot?"

"I guess you could say that, yes!" Usopp nodded.

"Sugei~!" Luffy gasped.

"Now, everybody~! Let me sort you guys into suuuuuuper partners!" Franky cheered. He began listing out the people that he had previously put into groups. "...Usopp and Nami..."

Usopp and Luffy looked at each other in shock. "Oh... Well, I suppose that this is goodbye, Usopp...!" Luffy said dramatically.

"No, Luffy!" Usopp exclaimed, a small tear running down his left eye, "Don't let me go!"

Luffy said in a kind, gentle voice of a woman, "Now, remember, Pinocchio: be a good boy, and always let your conscience be your guide!"

"Hey! Are you making fun of my nose by making references from movies?" Usopp snapped, grabbing his nose.

"Yep!"

"It's not that long..." the long-nosed boy replied as he walked away.

"Don't worry, Usopp! Maybe, someday, you can become a real boy!" Luffy called out.

"Aw, shut up! I _am_ real!"

Franky continued to list out people into groups. Finally, Luffy's named was called. "...Luffy and Hancock..." Franky called out. Luffy raised an eyebrow. The name sounded familiar... He looked over to see a tall girl with long, straight, black hair and snake earrings.

_'Oh... Right... That's her...' _Luffy thought to himself. He sat down at their assigned table. Luffy saw that she was not pleased by her partner whatsoever. It was obvious from the way she wasn't looking at him. "Hello!" Luffy called out to her.

Hancock sighed impatiently and looked over at Luffy. "What do you want, _man_?"

"Man? Ha! I didn't know you used that sort of thing in your sentences! What up, du-"

"No! I was calling you a male! Seriously..." Hancock scoffed, looking away again.

"Oh..." Luffy stared at her for a while. Being her partner would never work unless he made her happier. "I...like your earrings!" He was really just grabbing straws here. How should he know what would make her happy? She didn't seem all that nice in the first place...

Hancock widened her eyes and looked back at him. She stared at him for awhile before narrowing her eyes again. "Seriously? Are you being serious right now? Men don't _like _earrings. Men only like hurting things, ugly creatures, and being cruel."

Luffy widened his eyes. "Wha-what? Are you joking? Well, I'm a guy, and I don't feel that way! I'd never hurt a person for no reason, ugly creatures are only based on the eye of the beholder, Hancock, and kindness is the greatest thing that you can ever find or give!" Luffy smiled and spoke in a gentle, low voice to her, "If that's the opinion you have of men, then maybe I can change it?"

Hancock stopped. A light blush spread across her cheeks. She swung her head around, "Humph! Fine; you can feel that way, but there's no way that you can. A man is a man, no matter what he does!"

Luffy twitched an eyebrow. She was still annoying...

* * *

Luffy sighed as he walked up to the front door of his house. The last period of school was supposed to be spent for clubs or athletics. Since the athletics and clubs had not started yet, the students were forced to read to pass the time. Luffy would have had no problem with it, if only he had been a better reader. Yet, sadly, the majority of Luffy's life was spent fighting hard-core martial arts, not sitting down and learning to calmly read a mystery novel!

Finally, he unlocked the door and walked in. The moment he entered the house, he could hear a guitar playing from the radio and Ace singing from the kitchen, "_ Somebody's gonna hurt someone...before the night is through! Somebody's gonna come undone...there's nothing that we can do...! _" He could smell the aroma of chicken and... Luffy widened his eyes and ran into the kitchen screaming, "Ace! Don't tell me that you're-"

" _There's gonna be a heartache tonight! A heartache tonight! I know... There's gonna be a heartache tonight!__ A heartache tonight! Oh Lord, I know...! _" Luffy saw Ace cooking chicken in a pan that had flames flying from the pan. "Oh! Luffy! Welcome home, Little Bro! How 'bout it: flambé chicken for dinner and flambé cake for dessert? Well, it doesn't matter what you say, really... I'm already cookin' it!"

"Who suggested this, Ace?" Luffy exclaimed, "Flambé is dangerous!"

Ace ignored him for a while, " _This night is gonna last forever... Last all, last all summer long... Some time before the sun comes up... The radio is going to play that song!_" Ace looked at Luffy and answered his question, "Well... one: I like fire," Ace said as he poured more alcohol into the pan, sending flames flying up into the air, "and two: Sabo said it's fun~!"

Suddenly, Sabo slid in some blue socks across the brown, wood tile into view singing, " _There's gonna be a heartache! A heartache tonight, I know! There's gonna be a heartache tonight! Lord, I know!"_

"S-Sabo!" Luffy gasped.

Sabo's eyes widened at the sight of Luffy. "Hey, Luffy! Guess what? Great news!" Sabo ran up and grabbed Luffy into a massive hug. "I got the job!"

"You got the job?" Luffy repeated.

"Yep! And I met so many wonderful people, too!" Sabo exclaimed, "I mean, I was the only one that wanted the job, could fight, and didn't run away at the sight of the leader's face! But, I still got the job!"

"T-that's great, Sabo!" Luffy struggled to say. He didn't want him to going to this mysterious job at all if it meant him having to leave for weeks or months at a time. "You know what? No!" Luffy barked, "I refuse to you going to this job until you tell me what it is!"

Sabo stopped released Luffy from the hug. Ace, from the kitchen, called to him saying, "Sabo! You know you'd better tell him? It's going to come clean at some point, you know?"

Sabo sighed, "Yeah. Yeah, I know. All right, Luffy. I'll tell you. I got a job working for the Revolutionaries."

"The... The Revolutionaries!" Luffy gasped.

"Yeah. They're attempting to take down the World Government. I decided to join them, since I don't agree with the things that the World Government's been doing lately. Also, my parents were awful! They were blind and stuck by what cared for them and gave them wealth: the government. Now that we've got this poisonous cash at our disposal, the only way for the world not to bother us with it is for us to go against them in secret. Luffy... I need your help with this: do NOT tell anyone about this. Anyone! If someone figures out, they could tell the Government, then you guys would be in danger. I can't let that happen. I know that you'll be good about this and won't tell anyone. You're good at keeping secrets." Sabo smiled at him. "I can trust you, right, Luffy?"

Luffy hesitated. "Of course, Sabo!" Of course he would keep this secret! Why wouldn't he? His hesitation was only made by fear. Sometimes, it can feel better knowing nothing than knowing the truth. The truth can frighten you at times.

"Great!" Sabo patted Luffy's shoulder. "I knew that I could trust you, Luffy!"

"No you didn't!" Ace snapped, "I had to urge you on to tell him, yah jerk! Give me some credit, too!"

"Shut up! I'm having a brother to brother conversation, you idiot!" Sabo growled.

"I hate you!"

"That's not nice!"

"Your mom!"

There was silence.

"Yeah? What about my mom?" Sabo said. "Is that it? Is that all you're got? There's no more to say from that insult? If it's just a possessive personal pronoun and a noun, that's pretty pathetic, you know!"

"Y-yeah! I know that!" Ace looked back at his flambé chicken.

Sabo turned back to Luffy. "Maybe I can introduce you to some of the people there sometime? They're very nice! You'd love them! My partners are a very nice woman named Koala and a strange looking martial artist named Hack! You'd love them, Luffy! I know it."

Luffy nodded. "Yeah, maybe I will someday. Right now, though, I'm kind of tired... I'm just going to go to bed until dinner."

"O-Oh... right now?" Sabo stammered, "Are you sure, Luffy? Is something wrong?"

"No! Nothing's wrong; I'm just tired."

With that, Luffy walked up the stairs to his room. Ace and Sabo looked at each other in confusion. "It's his first day at school, you know? It's got to have been tough."

Sabo looked back at where Luffy disappeared. "Yeah..."

That night, after Luffy came out of his room for the food, they had a wonderful, fiery dinner, even if it was extremely dangerous to cook flambé inside a household. The three brothers had a small martial arts tournament with each other as the sun was sinking below the horizon-Luffy got beaten every time, though. Luffy was able to happily go to bed with a smile on. The moment he got in his bed and turned out the lights, though, he was plagued with the memory of the day his life changed forever.

When he awoke from his nightmarish memory, he sat up in bed and turned on the lamp on his nightstand. Luffy lifted up his hand and stared at it for awhile. "Now that I have friends," Luffy whispered to himself as he grabbed his skin, "when I tell them that I'm," grabbing his tan skin, he stretched it five inches away from his hand, "rubber?"

* * *

**Ooh~! Did you guys figure out what happened to Luffy? :D Ba ba baaaaaa! I mean, it's actually sort of obvious when you think of it! XD But, don't worry if you didn't know that that's what it was. :)**

****The song that Ace and Sabo were singing was the Eagles song: "Heartache Tonight", I truthfully am not a big fan of the song-if you are, I don't care-but I just felt like this song would sort of...fit the situation, you know? I was thinking that by 'heartache' it would mean 'heartburn' from how hot the food was and in the beginning of the song, the first words were saying that 'somebody's gonna get hurt', which from cooking flambé you can get seriously injured if you cook it inside a house and you aren't a professional (which Ace is NOT).**  
******

****I had fun with that part in the story, and the part with Luffy the Blue Fairy and Usopp the Pinocchio! XD ****

****Oh! Also, for Chapter 6, Kid isn't a nice person in this story, it's just that his favorite thing in the entire world to do is make fun of Law, and he was doing that there. He was just having fun! :3****

****That's all I've got to say for today, so... bye, y'all~! :)****


	8. Choppy

**Happy-Ah! What day is it...? Um... Oh! Happy Saturday, everyone! :D**

**Sabo...! All right, I'm just gonna say it: the first thing I thought when I saw his face was: "C-C-Coby?!" And then I felt weird that all of my fellow Sabo fangirls were doing was Sabo fangirls do best: fangirling about Sabo! So, the determination hit it! I thought to myself, "Strix, if you're gonna be a Sabo fangirl, you gotta like his looks, too! So, I've been rereading and rereading Chapter 744 and I've been looking at fanart about him for the past two days since it's come out and stuff... I'm almost there, though! Here, I'll prove it: He's got a magnificent mane. Aw, darn it! That won't prove ANYTHING! Besides, there wasn't even an swirly mark (~) or a heart, or even an exclamation mark, for that matter! Who am I kidding? I'm pathetic...**

**(I still love yah, Sabo~! ) **

**DISCLAIMER~!:** **All characters belong to Oda.**

**(Finally...! Let's start:)**

* * *

"So... um... You guys got anything?" Luffy looked around at his group partners. Their heads were down, either drawing, staring at the girl next to them, or asleep. Usopp was the only one paying attention to a word that Luffy said.

"We could do a project on plants?" Usopp chimed in.

"Or bugs!" Luffy grinned.

"All of those are boring..." Zoro muttered, half asleep.

"O-oh... Um..." Luffy stopped. It had been a week now since he had joined the school, and so far, no one in his science group had any idea what they were going to do for the Science Project. No matter how many times Luffy tried to make them interested in the topic, they would always refuse any kind or encouraging words he gave them. At this point, Luffy felt as if it was almost useless.

Luffy looked off to his right to see Law with two other teenagers and another dressed in a bear suit. He blinked at the man in the bear suit. He was the mascot for the Pirates, the soccer team at their school. For some strange reason, a polar bear was elected as the team mascot. The teenager that played the mascot, strangely, never got out of his polar bear outfit. It first started when he accidentally got stuck in it and was forced to wear it for a week until he could finally get it off. After that, he got so much attention that his friends told him to keep it on-which was a bad idea, really. The boy's name was Bepo. Everyone loved Bepo, because... you know, Bepo's a bear!

Law's group was working diligently on their science project about bears. They were almost close to being finished! The group made Luffy jealous. When he looked back at his, he noticed that they were still deciding on what to do for their project. This was getting them nowhere...

"Class is over," Shanks said impatiently as he played Minecraft on his computer, "Get the heck outta here... Lemme alone... _now_!"

Luffy stood up and gathered his stuff together. Usopp walked up to him and said, "Hey, Luffy! You wanna come over to my house after school to study for the History test tomorrow?"

"To your house?" Luffy blinked.

"Yep!" Usopp nodded, "How about it?"

Luffy looked down in confusion. He had never been invited to someone's house before. It felt strange... What should he say? Was it just a simple 'yes'? It made his heart fill with happiness to here someone want to spend time with him outside of class. Luffy looked up at Usopp with an enormous, toothy grin, "Sure! Thanks!"

Usopp grinned, "Awesome! Meet me after school, all right?"

_**After School...**_

Luffy and Usopp walked down Syrup Street to get to his house. The black-haired teenager looked around him. He'd never been down this road before; it was much poorer than his own street, East Road. Finally, they arrived at a small green house. Luffy blinked at it. It was one story and not very fancy at all. He felt strange when he looked at it, since he had such a large, beautiful house when Usopp's house was very tiny.

"C'mon, Luffy! Let's go in!" Usopp smiled.

"Are your parents home, Usopp?" Luffy asked, looking at the driveway to see not a single car there.

"Oh, no... They never are..." Usopp replied, "I live alone."

Luffy's eyes widened. "Y-you do?"

"Yeah, my mom died when I was very young and my dad doesn't live with us anymore. He has a job far away where he can't come home at all, since he lives there. So, it's only me and my little brother," Usopp replied.

He suddenly felt very guilty for bringing up the subject. It felt taboo, in a way. Luffy gulped as Usopp unlocked the door. He decided to change the subject, "You have a little brother?"

"Yes! You'll love-"

Suddenly, something sprang from the house and attacked Usopp's face. "Usopp~! You're home! I was sooooo lonely!" cried a little voice. Usopp laughed as he supported the little boy that was clinging onto him. Luffy widened his eyes in shock. _'This is Usopp's little brother?' _The little boy was literally the cutest thing that he had ever laid eyes on. He had large, black eyes with a round face. He had stubby hands and tiny fingers. His hair was light brown, a pink top hat on his head, a white 'X' on the front of it. A headband with antlers clung to the top of his head, making him look ever cuter than before. Luffy felt like he was going to explode. Wasn't it impossible for something to be this cute?

"Luffy, this is my little brother, Tony!" Usopp smiled. "But, we call him Chopper; that's his nickname!"

"Yo!" Chopper giggled. He had a tiny, excited voice that was cuter or just as cute than his face.

"H-hi, Chopper!" Luffy smiled.

"Are you Luffy?" Chopper asked, "Usopp told me aaaaaaaaaaaaall about you! You're _really_ cool~!"

Luffy laughed. "You think so?"

"Can I?" Chopper blinked, "I mean, I just met you and stuff, but I think that you're still really cool, can I?"

Luffy laughed again, "You can think whatever you feel like, Chopper!"

Finally, they entered the house and were sitting down in Usopp's room with their History notes ready to study. The only thing stopping them from studying was Chopper. "Hey, Luffy! You look really strong!" Chopper said excitedly as he poked Luffy's arm, "Are you a superhero?"

"Um... Not exactly. I'm a martial artist," Luffy replied.

"Oh, wow! Can you teach me martial arts?" Chopper asked with stars in his eyes. "Then I can be a superhero, too~!"

Luffy laughed. "Chopper, you do know that just because I can fight, it doesn't mean that I'm a superhero, right?"

"Well, then, if you're not a superhero, then who is?" Chopper asked Luffy.

Luffy stopped. There was never an easy way to answer such a grand question. The only possible way to answer such a question as 'where are the heroes of the world', was to answer it with a reply grander than the question itself! (**Author's Interruption: Prepare thy self:**) "Chopper, heroes don't have to be people who can fight or the ones that get the girls and all the fame. Heroes are the ones that never give up, and will always be there for the ones that they care about most in the world. Anyone can be a hero, Chopper! Just so long as they try and never, _ever _give up."

There was a long pause. Chopper stopped moving. Luffy slowly turned to look at Usopp before waving a hand in front of Chopper's awestruck face, his eyes sparkling. "I-is he all right?" Luffy asked.

"Yeah, he's just dazed," Usopp replied, "C'mon, Luffy, let's get on studying for our test." They turned to their notes. Usopp read off his study guide, "Luffy, what happened during the One-Hundred-Year War during the Dark Ages 800 years ago?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Luffy stared off into space for a long time. It was almost... unanswerable! Only the Great Creator himself (**Author's Interruption: *cough cough* Oda...! *cough** **cough***) would know the answer.

"Hey, hey! You don't have to give yourself a headache, buddy!" Usopp chuckled. "Here, I'll go get some snacks."

Luffy popped out of his daydream. "Snacks? Snacks! Ooh, lemme come with you!" With that, the two friends went into the kitchen to prepare themselves snacks while Chopper remained in his daze.

* * *

After two hours of being at Usopp's house, Luffy returned back to his house. He felt prepared for the History test that would be the next day, save for the fact that he still had no idea what happened during the One-Hundred-Year War during the Dark Ages 800 years ago...

"I'm home~!" Luffy announced as he entered his house. He looked around to see not a single person in view. "Ace? Sabo? Where are you guys?"

"I'm in here, Luffy!" Sabo's voice came from the bathroom. The door was open, shining yellow light down the dark stairs.

Luffy's face burst into a huge smile. He sped up the stairs, falling down them two times before he finally reached the top. The black-haired teenager ran into the bathroom to show Sabo that he had completed all of his homework and deserved something _amazing_. Luffy's eyes burst open in shock when he saw he brother looking over his new outfit in the mirror.

Sabo turned to Luffy and flashed him a cool grin. "Hello, Luffy! How do you like this outfit? I'm going to wear it to work tomorrow!" (**This is for all of my fellow Sabo fangirls! ;) ****SPOILERS:**) Sabo was a lean, yet muscular, man standing a few inches above average height. His eyes were large just like Luffy's. He had a large, deep scar across left eye. His hair was at medium-length so that it touched the collar of his shirt. It was wavy, and was blonde enough that shone brightly in the lights above the mirror as if it was a light itself. His outfit composed of a dark vest and a white dress shirt with white frills hanging like a tie around his neck. His pants were slightly baggy as they continued down into his tall, black boots. On his hands were dark gloves, a dark jacket around him, and goggles hanging from his neck. "I did my hair and everything! I don't know, but I think I look pretty _good_!"

"S-Sabo! W-what did you _do _to yourself!" Luffy exclaimed.

Sabo ran toward him and threw his head in Luffy's face. "Come here, Luffy! Touch my hair! It's really soft!"

"I don't wanna touch your hair!" Luffy cried. He grabbed his older brother's head and pushed him away, suddenly stopping and saying with an impressed grin, "Ooh! It _is _soft!"

"I know!" Sabo grinned with wide eyes. "That's why I did it!" Sabo looked back at his reflection in the mirror and winked at himself, "I'm gonna keep it like this from now on! Then maybe I'll get that cute revolutionary I met to like me? What do you think, Luffy? You think cute revolutionary girls will like me?"

"Sabo! What has Ace done to you? You became a monster!" Luffy screamed. "No girl will like any guy like that!"

Sabo burst out laughing. "Hey, hey! I was only kidding! You know that I'm not like that!" There was a long pause. "But, she _was _cute."

"Sabo!?"

Laughing again, the blonde-haired man looked at his outfit and back at himself in the mirror. "I wonder what Ace will think of my new look? Think he'll like it, Luffy? C'mon, tell me the truth!"

**_After Ace Got Home..._**

"_Aah! Sabo! You stole my hairstyle!"_

* * *

**Meh! That was all fluff. :)**

**The next chapter is where Luffy's plan sets into action! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! **

**I like Sabo with his top hat! :) Sabo + His Top Hat = Sabo With His Top Hat On. :| What? What were you expecting?**

**-_Valete_,_ amici_~! :D**


	9. Let's Be Friends!

**Welcome, everyone, to the beginning! This is the chapter where it all _begins_! Now that I'm done introducing most of the characters (save for Robin, she comes in later), all I've gotta do is make it begin! :) Let's start this off with a bang, shall we?**

**I hope that you enjoyed reading the last chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! ;) I might add little chapters talking about what's going on with Sabo and Ace or other "minor" characters at some point. (In One Piece, are there really any minor characters? They all seem to play at least some major role at one point, you know? You know what? Never mind... There _are_ minor characters and I probably just can't think of any right now.)**

**Anywho, let's get started! :)**

**DISCLAIMER: Oda-_sensei_ owns all of these wonderful, awe-inspiring, mind-blowing, and life-changing characters! Thank you, Oda_-sensei _for bringing these wonderful characters into our lives. :) I cannot thank you enough for all the times that you've helped me up when I was down! :)**

* * *

Luffy sat in silence, his head down. All around him sat his Science group partners. Not a single person uttered a word for reasons Luffy couldn't quite identify. It had been like this for about two weeks, some people were almost finished with their projects, while they had no idea what they were going to do.

The black-haired teenager raised his head when he saw Law's group get out of their seats with a poster-board with drawings of the anatomy of a polar bear on it along with a dozen other pictures and facts about polar bears on it. They walked up to Shanks and showed him their project. "Mr. Akagami," Law said, calling his attention, "We're finished with our project."

Shanks smiled brightly. "Oh, really! That's amazing! Lemme see, lemme see-"

Luffy's group stared at Law and his friends in shock. Luffy was the one who was the most shocked out of all of them. He whipped his head down to his empty notebook. He hadn't been in school for too long, but he _knew_ that they were doing something wrong. The silence had been silent for far too long. Luffy briskly rose to his feet. His group jumped at his quick, abrupt movement. "That's it!" Luffy barked. Fortunately, no one had noticed Luffy's outburst. "They're already done with their project? Don't _any _of you feel even just a _little _guilty? If you don't, then I'm _ashamed_! From this moment on, I'm taking over!"

Everyone blinked in confusion.

"You can think of me as your captain," Luffy announced, "With my help, I'll _make sure _that we get the best grade possible on this project! Now, I think that we got off on the wrong foot. Here, let me start," Luffy sat down, "My name is Monkey D. Luffy! I like meat and martial arts!"

Usopp smirked. He saw what he was doing. "My name is Usopp! I like sniping and being with my friends!"

The rest of the group hesitated, waiting for someone else to continue. Finally, Sanji cleared his throat, "My name is Sanji. I like cooking and," he gave a wink to Nami, "pretty women~!"

Zoro snorted, "Psh! Idiot...!"

"Why don't you go next, then, Zoro?" Luffy urged on gingerly.

"Wha? Oh, no, I... Um..." He sighed and looked away as he introduced himself, "My name is Roronoa Zoro and I like sword-fighting and breaking the bones of annoying monsters with stupid eyebrows..."

Everyone turned to Nami. She jumped and blushed. "U-um... M-my name is Nami. I like mikans and money..."

Luffy smiled warmly at her. "That's so nice! I've never tried a mikan before! Do they taste good, Nami?"

Nami hesitated and looked away. The last thing that she had wanted from this was to talk to them. "Of course they taste good... They're the best fruit in the entire world, that's how good they are. My mother used to own an orchard of them..."

Luffy grinned. "Then, you'll let me try them one day, right?"

The orange-haired girl widened her eyes and looked up at him. She stopped when she saw him. It had been a very long time since anyone had ever treated her so kindly, looked at her so warmly, and talked to her so gently. It made her feel... comfortable. Nami was shocked to find a light smile slowly stretching across her face until it was a large grin. "I suppose I could give you one some day."

"Shishishishi~! Great!" Luffy giggled.

Zoro stared in shock at the young teenager making the devil woman smile. No one had ever done that before! There was something strange about the black-haired teenager. "Hey! You! 'Captain'! I don't think that I want to follow a kid as scrawny as you. You aren't worthy enough to be my leader, kid," Zoro challenged.

Luffy narrowed his eyes with a smirk. "Oh yeah? Is that a challenge?"

Zoro smirked back. "It may or may not be!"

"You can challenge me whenever you'd like, Zoro," Luffy replied, "But right now, we've got a project to do. Do you have any ideas?"

"I'm not a science guy, kid," Zoro growled.

Luffy grinned. "Oh! All right, then!" With that, he turned away from him and asked the others what they wanted to do the project on.

Zoro widened his eyes. He had thought that it was going to be more difficult than that. "Hey! You seem very intent on doing this project, kid. Do you have any ideas what you want this project to be about?"

Luffy closed his eyes, smirked, and snickered. "Well! I don't mean to brag or anything, but I'm a bit of a bug person, myself! But, I actually like animals in general. I'm a Nature person, see!" He replied with a small hair-flip.

"Then why don't you just have us do a project on that?"

"Because it'd be rude to just decide something on my own without having your opinions as well! Only conceited jerks do something like that!" Luffy explained. "I care for all of my friends!"

Zoro smiled. _'This kid's interesting...!' _

"All right, students! Class is over," Shanks announced, "Your homework is just the same as yesterday: continue working on your science project with your group. If you're done-"

Zoro collected all of his things and and walked out of class. Everyone minded their own business, but when Zoro walked by, the crowded hallways became even more crowded as everyone struggled to make way for the short-tempered beast. Finally getting out of the hallways, he was about to climb up the stairs to go to his next class when suddenly, a force collided into Zoro's shoulder. He blinked in anger and whipped his head around to confront the person who bumped into him.

He was a skinny, strange, conceited-looking young man with a strange, oval-shaped haircut. He wore a purple suit and white shoes. "Who are you?" Zoro scoffed as he looked him over.

"Eh! You don't know who _I _am? Well, maybe you'll know who my daddy is, then!" he snorted, "My daddy is a coach at Seifu Academy! His name is Coach Morgan! I'm Helmeppo He sent me to come here to monitor your puny school before the headmaster visits in a month!"

Zoro paused for a moment before walking away while muttering, "Lame..."

"L-lame! Hey, you!" Helmeppo ran back up to him. "You can't call me lame!"

"I just did..."

"Guards!" Helmeppo called out to five men from behind him. They were large, broad and very, very intimidating.

"You have... guards?" Zoro muttered. "That's lame," he muttered again as he continued to walk away.

"Guards, get him!" The five guards charged up to him, throwing their fists toward him. Zoro dodged their attacks, he swooped up his own fist and struck one of them straight in the fist. He muttered as he looked down at his hip, seeing that his swords were missing. He had them confiscated at the beginning of the day for 'accidentally' cutting someone. It made him angry that he didn't have his babies- weapons.

The guard who Zoro hit growled and threw his hand forward in attempt to strike Zoro back. Suddenly, Mr. Hie, or Kuzan, walked past them. He stopped in front of the seven people standing tall and proper in front of him. Kuzan blinked in boredom at them. "You know, I _really _don't care if you fight or not..."

"Oh! Really?"

"Yeah! Of course! That's why I quit Seifu Academy," he replied as he began walking away again, "It's too strict..."

"Hey!" Helmeppo barked, "Seifu Academy is _not _'too strict'!"

"Yes, it is..." Everyone muttered, even Helmeppo's guards.

"W-well, whatever! Just make that rude man pay!" Helmeppo snapped, making the guards attack him once more. Zoro coughed in agony as one of the guards struck his gut, while another punched his back. Pain surged down his spine, making small drops of blood form up around his mouth.

The green-haired swordsman shook his head to try and get the ache and dizziness out of his brain. Suddenly, when Zoro could finally open his eyes and hear through his large headache again, he could see a figure spring down from the floor below, fall down on a guard and punch two guards straight in the stomach the moment he fell down. The figure threw up his leg and whacked another guard on his jaw with it, sending him flying through the air. The stranger stopped and turned to look at the remaining guard, who shivered before running away screaming in fright. "Hey!" Helmeppo barked, "Oh yeah? You're gonna do that, huh? I'll tell my Daddy on you! And then let's see how you feel when you get _fired_!"

"Hey," growled the stranger, "What do you think you're doing?"

Finally, Zoro's vision came back. He stared up at a moderately tall teenager with tousled, raven-black hair. The black-haired teenager was so scrawny, that it made Zoro almost cough in shock that he had just saved him. It was strange; just a little while ago, Zoro had seen a bright, goofy smile stretched across his lips, but now the teenager stood tall and firm, his chin raised in superiority. Luffy's eyes blazed with a raging fire of fury.

"Eh? Who are you!" Helmeppo growled.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy!" he said, "Who do you think _you_ are, treating this guy like that?"

"I'm the son of Coach Morgan of-"

"I don't care about who your dad is!" Luffy snapped. "Who your father is does _not _determine your rank! Not even rank should be an excuse for hurting someone that has done _nothing _to you!"

Helmeppo gulped before yelling, "Yes, it does!" Suddenly, an enormous force slammed against Helmeppo's stomach, sending him flying against the wall.

Zoro blinked in shock. He looked back at Luffy. "Why did you help me?" he asked the black-haired teenager.

Luffy turned to Zoro and stared at him for a while. Finally, his face lit up with a large smile, "You looked like you needed help! It'd be cruel to just leave you like that. You seriously looked like you were suffering; are you all right, now?"

Zoro nodded.

"All right! Tell me if you need anything, OK? I'm here for you, you know, buddy!" Luffy grinned as he walked away from them.

* * *

Luffy licked his lips and opened up his lunch box. Usopp watched as Luffy emptied the banquet that he had somehow crammed into it. "Luffy... I'm sorry to say this, but you eat _way _too much..."

His friend blinked at him. "Why are you sorry to say that?"

"Well, it might have hurt your feelings, you know?"

"No."

"Oh... Um... Then I don't know what to say..." Usopp turned back to his sandwich, coughing to hide his words, "You're gonna get diabetes!"

"What was that!" Luffy whipped his head around to Usopp, a frown on his face, "What'd you say, Usopp? I heard something! Did you say something rude? You jerk!"

"No! I didn't say anything!" Usopp defended.

"Then I was hearing things?" Luffy asked calmly.

"Yep!"

"What! No way...!"

Suddenly, they heard a cough from next to them. The two friends looked up to see a man standing over them. "Um..." he hesitated, "M-may I sit with you guys?" Usopp screamed at the sight. Never, in all of his years at the school, had Usopp ever seen Zoro ask to sit with someone at lunch. Zoro ate with his swords, that was it. Was it because he had them taken away? Or was it something else?

"Sure! It's sort of an empty table, anyway," Luffy replied.

"Luffy!" Usopp hissed, "What are you doing? This is Roronoa Zoro! He's a _monster_! You can't just invite monsters to our table as if it's nothing!"

Luffy stared at Usopp in confusion. "Why not? He's got no one else, right? No matter if you're a monster or an angel, everyone wants a friend!" Luffy smiled up at Zoro, "You're always welcome at our table, Zoro!"

Usopp frowned as Zoro sat down on the bench in front of them. "Thank you," he murmured. Usopp gulped. He wasn't sure, but he could feel that this was the beginning of an enormous change that was going to happen at his once quiet school, and Luffy was the culprit.

* * *

**Hehehehehehehe! C'est bon?**

**I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I DID NOT TRY TO ADD ANY LUNA MOMENTS IN HERE! DON'T GET ANY IDEAS FROM WHAT YOU READ! Ugh... You guys should tell me if this should be Luna, OK? Should I? Or should I not?**

**I had fun with this chapter, save for the battle scene... I'm not too fond of putting repetitive actions of 'he punched him, and then he punched him back, and then they punched each other, and then suddenly another guy flew in and then ninja-kicked all of them'. I have to at least put them saying SOMETHING to each other! If I don't, I feel like I'm going to die of boredom! I don't know if any of you like to write battle scenes or something... But if you do like it, then you must have some kind of method, other than mine, of making it more exciting...**

**By the way, the lunch tables at their school are circular. The ones outside are circular, while the ones inside are long and stretch across the cafeteria. Their school is big, too, it's... I don't know, it's just big! Think of it like that... It's got three stories, a main building where all of the classes are, a library, a cafeteria, a gym, and another, smaller gym that's use for hand-to-hand combat (boxing/wrestling/martial arts).**

**All right, that's all for this long chapter! I hope you guys liked it! See y'all later~! :)**


	10. That's A Challenge

**Hi, y'all~! :)**

**Are you excited as I am for this chapter? ;) I have a favor for y'all, by the way! If you could tell me which characters you'd be excited to see in this story, that'd be great! (I also just wanna say that I love comments, so you don't have to be scared to give me some! :3 B-but...if you could try to make them nice, that'd be great! Please!) Anyways, if any of you Robin fans are waiting for her to show up, don't worry, she's coming! :) You'll see! (Just read and you will!)**

**I also decided not to do LuNa! Just in case you were wondering! :) I wouldn't want to anger any of you. Tell me if you'd be interested in my adding any pairings in here! **

**Oh! Also, I've been thinking of changing the rating to 'T' because, ever since I started writing _Reclaiming Life_, I feel like the characters wouldn't use slang all the time, especially since they're in high school. Should I do that?**

**That's it for now! Bye, y'all! Hope you like it~! :D**

* * *

Nami stood in the cafeteria in front of the large entrance to the outside area of the tables. She, as well as many other students, stared out at Zoro smiling and laughing with Luffy and Usopp. "_Roronoa Zoro_ is eating at someone else's table?" she whispered to herself. "What in the world is going on?"

"Hey, Hancock!" Alvida ran up to Hancock and shook her shoulder. "Have you heard?"

"Huh? No, I don't think so," Hancock replied with a shake of her head. "What's going on?"

"It's Roronoa Zoro! He's eating lunch with those nerdy geeks!" Alvida cried. "Can you believe it, Hancock?"

Hancock stopped. She stood up and walked over to the window to see the wild, green-haired monster enjoying himself with his new friends. "What in the world? This is insane!"

"I know, right?" Alvida said. Actually, it had been just yesterday that Zoro had began eating with Luffy and Usopp, but today was the first time that anybody noticed the change. It scared the entire school, the thought of a monster like Roronoa Zoro turning soft. It was a bad omen, indeed.

Hancock looked over at Alvida and whispered, "What should we do?"

Alvida smirked at her. "Oh? And you suggest we change his new friendship with the geeks? Why should we do that? It's funny, watching this embarrassing scene. I quite like it, actually! It's fun!" They looked over at Luffy, Usopp, and their new friend, Zoro. The two girls watched as Zoro suddenly burst into a huge fit of laughter. Alvida frowned. "On second thought, it's kind of sad... I wonder what sort of hypnosis they got him under? Let's try and snap him out of it."

"How do you suggest we do that?" Hancock asked.

Her friend laughed lightly. "How do you think, honey? Plan A-Snap him out of it, Plan B-_Make _him stop, or Plan C-Blackmail him."

"Blackmail him?" Hancock stopped. "What do you mean?"

"What does it _sound _like?" Alvida said, "We're doing this for _him_! Do you want him to be living his life in embarrassment like _that_? For God's sake, he could have picked something better to get humiliated for! But, _this_? Oh, poor guy...!"

Hancock frowned and looked away. "I'll try my best, Alvida," she said quickly.

Alvida smirked and began to walk away. "Good! See you around, then?"

"Yeah..." Hancock mumbled.

* * *

Luffy turned the knob to the large library door. Usopp had told him to get books from the library on bugs, the animal that they had chosen to do their science project on. The young man walked into the school library. He stared around him in awe. Luffy had never before seen a room with so many books. He had been to a library before with Sabo, but that one was small. The library he stood in towered many feet above him, as did the enormous shelves. Books spread across the entire room. Desks lined the room, as well.

The black-haired teenager walked up to the desk where the librarian sat. She was a tall, slender young woman with jet black hair that she had pinned up into a bun. She was very beautiful; her eyes were a deep brown, and her skin was slightly pale. On her nose hung thin, rectangle glasses. "Hello! Is there something that I can help you with?" she asked.

"Um... Yes," Luffy replied, "I'm looking for books on bugs. It's for a science project."

"Ah! So you're in Mr. Akagami's class, hmm?" she said, "Yes, I know. Many of your classmates have been coming in here, looking for books as well. Follow me, I'll take you to the bug section." She walked from behind the desk and led him to a section in the library. The librarian turned to Luffy and asked, "What is your name?"

"Luffy, Monkey D. Luffy," he answered.

"D, huh? Interesting..." she said, "My name is Nico Robin. I'm the librarian here, if you need any help, just ask, all right, Luffy?"

"Yes, ma'am," Luffy nodded. He watched as Robin walked away. Luffy turned to the bookshelf and choose a few books about several different insects. When he was finished, he took them back to Robin's desk and set them down. "I'm finished," he replied.

"Did you find everything you were looking for, Luffy? You didn't have any trouble?" Robin asked Luffy as she checked out his books for him.

"Nope! I found everything I was looking for, I think," Luffy said, "But if I need anything else, I'll come back, though!"

"I hope that we meet each other, again, Luffy!" Robin told him as Luffy collected his books again and nodded.

He pushed open the door with his back, his hands full with the large stack of books. Luffy stepped away from the large door as it shut quietly. He looked around, wondering where he had left his friend. Zoro had come with him to help him out if he needed any help carrying the books, but he couldn't seem to find him anymore. "Zoro?" Luffy called out.

"He's not doing anything like that!" Luffy heard Zoro's voice yelling in anger from behind the building.

Luffy felt a feeling of urgency. Was his friend in trouble again? He ran around the corner to see Zoro fighting with the girl everyone called Hancock. "Zoro! Z-Zoro? Is everything all right?"

"No! Luffy, help me get rid of this jerk!" Zoro said.

Luffy staggered over to a nearby bench with his enormous stack of books in his hands. "All right! I will! Let me just set this stuff down on this bench over here," Luffy told him as he stumbled on his feet.

Hancock walked away from Zoro and went over to Luffy. "Hello, Monkey D. Luffy," she said.

Luffy let out a sigh of relief as he set down the heavy book. He turned to her and smiled with a large grin on his face. "Hello! You're... _Hammock_, right?" Luffy said.

Hancock's eyes widened in shock. Zoro burst out laughing from behind her. Hancock whipped her head around and screamed, "You shut up, you arrogant man!" Hancock turned back to Luffy and hissed, "You think that you can call me that, you brat?"

"Oh! So that's not your name?" Luffy blinked.

"You're just a kid! You have no value compared to me!" Hancock growled, "I rule over this school! I do! Not you! So, stop acting all high and mighty!" Hancock threw her leg up and kicked over the books onto the ground. Luffy lowered his head, his long, black bangs covering his eyes. "Until you can prove to me that you even have enough worth to look at me with such confidence, you shall not even speak to me! I suggest that you quiet down, or else someone's going to notice you, and no one wants that." With that, she strutted away.

Zoro gritted his teeth and yelled, "Yeah! You better get lost, you jerk! Or else! I'll come after you with my friggin' swords! Get lost!" He turned back to Luffy and ran over to him. "Hey! You all right? You don't have to listen to her, Luffy! She doesn't have any idea what she's talking about!"

Luffy lifted his head up. "I don't care about showing my worth to _her_," he growled.

"Huh? What's that, Luffy?" Zoro asked.

"If she thinks of me like that, then I wonder who else thinks that way..." Luffy murmured. "I'll show everyone! I'll show them that they shouldn't ignore me, because I'm going to change this place... They'll see." Luffy turned to Zoro. "How about it, Zoro? Are you going to help me change this place?"

Zoro smirked. "Of course I am!" he laughed.

"Good!" Luffy smiled, "Hammock won't see what hit her, but more importantly: no one else will!"

* * *

**Ba ba baaaaaaaa~! Hehe! **

**Sorry about that this chapter was so short, guys! I just know what I want to do for the next chapter, so I'm going to end it here. I'm going to publish a story really soon! Because I'm too excited for the next chapter! :D I'm going to get started on it right away! :D **

**I don't have much to say, so... Bye~! I hope you liked it~! :D**


	11. The Revolutionaries

**Welcome back, everyone! Did yah miss me? ;)**

**Was Luffy too OOC in the last chapter? Sorry if it seemed that way... I was really tired when I wrote it, so I don't think that it turned out maybe as great as I wanted it to... Oh well! Hopefully, this chapter will make it better! :)**

**You could really actually call this chapter 10.5, because it's not really following the real plot story, it's just talking about-Well, you'll just have to see. :) I've been waiting to write this one for a while, so here we go!**

**My friend's been urging me along really quick because she's been waiting for this chapter since forever! So, here it is!**

**Oh! Also, this book does _not_ take place in the real world! **

**Not a very long author's note, but let's get it started!**

* * *

**_Chapter 10.5_  
**

_**The Revolutionaries**_

Far off in a desert that no one expected would be there because it's very close to a very green forest, city, and the sea, a building made out of rocks sits in the dirt. No one knows about this building, but even if they did, not a single person would ever venture to it. This building is where the most dangerous man in the world, Dragon. Dragon is the only man leading a force that has the capabilities to take down the government, the Revolutionaries. No one could beat Dragon, or the Revolutionaries, no one.

Inside of the Revolutionaries' hideout, a secret meeting was being held. "Attention, everyone!" a man with brown curly hair and a black hat with a blue feather on it called out from the from of a long desk. Several people sat in chairs near the desk. Their faces held grim expressions, shadows covering their eyes. "We have currently conquered over twenty major countries! This is a good start, but not good enough! A few weeks ago, we hired an old friend of the boss'. Dragon-_san_made him the new Chief of Staff and General. Hopefully, you shall impress us, S-Sabo? Sabo, are you all right?"

Everyone looked over to the young man sitting at the far end of the desk. His head was pressed against the surface of the table, his blonde hair strewn all over the place and his hat had rolled off of his head and onto the floor. Loud snores echoed from his throat and a large puddle of drool dripped from his lips. "_Sabo!_" Everyone screamed.

Sabo bolted up his head with a terrified scream, "_Fire! Ah! We're all gonna die!_" The young man blinked as he stared around at his new comrades. A large, embarrassed blush spread across his cheeks "Ah! Uh! Um...! Y-yes! I-I'm fine! Please, continue, Bunny Joe!" Sabo urged.

Bunny Joe laughed nervously. He looked over at Dragon standing ominously at the doorway in the shadows. Dragon's eyes narrowed at Sabo, who was now lowering his head in embarrassment. Dragon wore a long, dark green cloak. His hair was long, slicked back, and spiky, and on the left side of his face was a tribal-style red tattoo. "Um... Dragon-_san_?" Bunny Joe called out to him.

Dragon turned to Bunny Joe. "Ah! Yes, right." Dragon walked up beside Bunny Joe and looked over everyone. "I need some people to be Sabo's assistants," Dragon said. Dragon's eyes widened in shock when some hands up went up into the air. "Oh! Uh... N-no! I've already chosen two people to help him, but thank you, those of you that volunteered just now, though." Everyone put their hands down. Dragon turned back to the ground and announced, "I have assigned Koala and Hack to be Sabo's assistants!" The revolutionaries cheered for Koala and Hack.

Koala smiled in glee. She always enjoyed helping Dragon with things. Koala was a pretty young woman with short, light brown hair and a newspaper-boy hat on with goggles wrapped around it. Her shirt was frilly and her skirt was short. Her boots went up to her thighs and on her hands were gloves. "I won't let you down, Dragon-_san_!" she said.

"Oh, don't worry, Koala!" Dragon replied, "I'm not worried about you: I'm worried about Sabo! Look at him, sleeping at the first meeting! Nothing good can come out of young men that fall asleep on the _first day_ of his _highly dangerous_ job working for the _most dangerous man in the world_! Seriously...! Kids these days... _My _son would _never _do something_ that _stupid- I mean, I DON'T HAVE A SON!" Everyone blinked in confusion at their leader. Dragon's face lit up. He coughed into his sleeve as he apologized, "So sorry about that, everyone! I... I don't know what that was!"

"You think I'm untrustworthy?" Sabo exclaimed in astonishment.

"Hey! I never said that, did I?" Dragon yelled. "I only said that you can never-Oh! Never mind. I was kind of saying that you are untrustworthy." Dragon turned back to Koala, "Make sure that he does his job correctly! Make him feel at home here."

"I will, Dragon-_san_!" Koala said.

"Excellent! Well, I'll be taking my leave now. Good bye," Dragon said. He quickly turned around and began to leave, his cloak flowing behind him. As he left, a revolutionary at the door began to play the Darth Vader theme song. Dragon suddenly stopped and looked at the man that started the music. "Don't make me destroy you," Dragon replied. With that, Dragon left.

Sabo looked around at everyone as the rest of the revolutionaries began to leave as well. "Hello, Sabo!" Sabo turned his head to Koala. Beside her stood a large man who, strangely, had gills, fins, and scales. "Have you seen your room, yet?"

"Uh... no," Sabo replied with a shake of his head.

"Oh! Then follow us! We'll take you to it," Koala smiled. She turned to the fishman and told him, "You don't have to stay with us, Hack. You can go with the others if you want."

Hack nodded. He turned to the doorway where everyone had left. Before he went, he told her, "Koala, if you need anything, just tell me, all right?"

"I will!" Koala said. Sabo walked behind Koala as they walked down the hallway. Thousands of thoughts were racing through his mind: Will he like this job? Would it suit his liking? How was Ace and Luffy doing? Did he wear the right clothes? How did everyone else think of him? Should he really be wondering that? It was, after all what kids going to a new school thought. But it should be OK if you're going to a new job, right? "Hey, Sabo?" Koala interrupted his thoughts.

Sabo jumped at her voice. "H-huh? What is it?"

"Do you like it here so far?" Koala asked him.

Sabo's eyes widened. "Well, I think so. Everyone here is so nice, and... stuff..."

"Do you have any family, Sabo?" Koala asked as they turned around a corner.

"Yes!" the blonde-haired man got on a bright smile, "Their names are Ace and Luffy! They're my younger brothers! Well, except Ace is just a few months younger than I am, though."

Koala turned to him with a confusion expression. "And how's that possible?"

"Oh! No, no! We're not blood related. We're all orphans, so we're sworn brothers!" Sabo replied.

Koala smiled. "That's sweet! What are your brothers like, Sabo?"

"They... They have _very _complex personalities, really. Ace tries to act tough, when he's really just a polite guy with a big heart. Luffy... Ah! What can I say about him? Well, for starters, the most important thing you need to know about my little brother is that he is madly in love with meat! I'm talking _true_ _love_ here! He's really strong, even though he might look weak and scrawny. He loves making friends, but he's good at holding grudges. He's really stupid, but he's surprisingly amazing when doing math and talking about bugs and other animals. They're both really great! I love them a lot!" Sabo said.

Koala looked at him with a grin on her face. "I think I'm going to like working with you, Sabo!" she told him. The woman stopped at a door and opened it. (**I'm not going to explain the room because I have no idea what Sabo's room is like. I may or may not explain it how I want to be later, but for now, I'm not going to. Let's just say it looks cool. (:**) "This is your room, Sabo!" Koala smiled.

Sabo stepped into the room and looked around. "This is nice!" he laughed proudly. "Thanks! Oh! What days am I going back to my family?"

"Probably on Wednesdays and during the weekends. It might change as time goes on, though," Koala replied.

"I see," Sabo nodded, "Thank you! I'd like to just stay in here for a little while, you can give me a tour later."

"All right!" Koala said, "Just tell me if there's anything that you need!"

"Don't worry! I will!" Sabo agreed. He waved good-bye to Koala as she closed the door. Sabo's hand dropped down to his side. The bed rocked as he collapsed onto the surface of it. He let out a long, heavy sigh. He pushed his hand over his forehead, pushing the strands of long, blonde hair off of his face. "What am I going to do?" He couldn't tell if he liked this place or not. It felt secluded from the rest of the world, and Sabo was a social man. Would he like this place? Well, really, only Time can tell.

* * *

**It'll get funnier in future chapters, I promise! This is only introducing this tiny 'sub-story'. I'll be adding an either an ASL part or just a part about Ace or Sabo after Luffy gets another friend. They'll be stories like this, but... funnier. This is sort of an 'introducing' chapter. I'm going to have ALOT of fun with the next one! ;) It's going to be with Sabo and Dragon again! Hehe! I'm gonna love it~!**

**I'm so happy! I love every single one of your comments! They make me so happy! Thank you all for the wonderful things that you've said! I never thought that this fanfiction would get so much love! Thank you all! :D**

**Have a good weekend, y'all~! **


	12. The Martial Arts Club

**Hello, everyone~! How was your week(end)? I hope you had a great one! :D**

**Oh my God, everyone! I'm SO sorry about the huge delay I had on this chapter! I have been having MAJOR computer problems lately, and, I'm sorry, but they will probably be continuing throughout the entire summer...**

**All right! Let's get this show on the road! I'm don't have much to say, so I won't say anything at all! I'll just let you read! (Besides, I'm listening to a really good song, and I don't want to waste it on this introduction! I want to hurry up and get my ideas flowing before it ends!)**

**Grr! I'll probably be having a difficult time publishing for a while because my laptop is failing on me... It's about time to say goodbye to it... So, I wouldn't be too eager to see a chapter for a while. (Darn it! This laptop's got all of my books on it, too!) Also! Since summer is coming up, school won't be getting in my way, so that means that I'll have more opportunities to write. But this doesn't mean that I'm going to be publishing every day or something like that! One day I'm going to write this story, the next day I'll write _Reclaiming Life_, and then the next day I'll write the series I'm working on. (I've been wasting too much time! I need to hurry up on that one if I want to finish it soon!) So, that's how the summer will be. OK? OK! :)**

**I hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading (and, hopefully, liking)!**

* * *

Ace looked up when he saw Luffy jump all the way down the stairs and slide into the living room. "Bye, Ace! I'm going to go to school, now!" Ace blinked and sat up from where he sat on the couch watching television.

"Luffy! At six o'clock in the morning?" Ace called out. However, his words were not able to reach Luffy as he raced out the door.

Sabo laughed at Luffy. "He's so jumpy! He sure loves that school! That's nice!"

Ace turned to Sabo. "What the hell is he going to do this early in the morning? There is no way that school starts this early!" Ace yelled. "What is that school forcing him to do so early?"

"Haven't you heard Luffy talking about it?" Sabo asked, "The Martial Arts Club starts today at 6 A.M.! Luffy's so excited: he's been talking about it all week! He sure loves combat fighting...!"

"Oh! So that's what it is? That makes much more sense!" Ace replied with a more confident smile. "He sure is my little brother!" Ace smirked. "I raised him well!"

"You didn't actually raise him, Ace..."

* * *

Luffy laughed confidently as he sprang over the school gate. When he landed on the concrete, he looked back up at the gate with a wide smile. He dusted himself off and walked onward through the school. "Where was I supposed to go again?" Luffy asked himself. He unfolded a small flier that stated where the club would be held.

Finally, Luffy reached the gymnasium where the Martial Arts Club was labeled to be held. He quietly opened the door and peered in. A few students stood-or sat-in the gym. One fat, little, pink-haired teenager sat on the bleachers doing his math homework, pushing his round, purple glasses further up his nose. The punk delinquent, Bartolomeo, stood in the center of the gym making a few air punches. Another man, who was a pretty man with long, blonde locks, stood near the back door, checking himself out in a small hand-mirror. "Hey! It's you!" Luffy turned his head around to see Sanji smiling at him, "You joined, too?"

Luffy's face lit up in excitement. "Hey, Sanji! Yeah, I decided to join! I don't mean to brag, but I'm a pretty good fighter."

"Oh yeah?" Sanji laughed. "Think you're better than me?"

"I'm not sure," Luffy smiled.

Sanji burst out laughing. "You're a weird guy, you know that, Luffy?"

"I am?" Luffy blinked.

"Welcome, everyone!" Luffy and Sanji turned to see an old man calling out to them from the center of the gymnasium. "Gather around, students!" When everyone was surrounding him, he introduced himself, "My name is Silvers Rayleigh! I will be your Martial Arts teacher from here on out. Here we shall compete against the other physical-combat-orientated schools such as Seifu Academy and-"

"Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a second!" Everyone turned around to look at Bartolomeo. "You're telling me that an old man like _you_ is going to be our _Martial Arts_ teacher?"

Rayleigh smiled. "Yes, of course!"

Bartolomeo burst out laughing. "You're kidding, right? You're so old, though! There is no way that a guy like you could teach us! _I_ could teach this class better than you could!"

Rayleigh raised an eyebrow at the delinquent. "Are you sure about that, boy?" Rayleigh made a gesture for him to come closer. "If you think so, would you like me to prove my rights of being here teaching you students?"

Bartolomeo snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure...!"

"Are you sure? I won't go easy on you!" Rayleigh warned.

He walked up and stopped in front of Rayleigh. "I'm not scared," Bartolomeo replied with a raise of his chin. The old man smiled and closed his eyes. He let out a deep breath, put one foot behind him, and raised his arms. Letting out another breath, he stood in place for a while. Suddenly, his eyes flew open, and he threw out his arm, scoring Bartolomeo straight in the gut.

Luffy's eyes widened as he saw Bartolomeo fall to the ground. "Good God!" Bartolomeo coughed, "Who the hell are you!"

Rayleigh looked up and announced to the group. "I'm your teacher!"

"Holy shit, old dude~!" Luffy screamed, grabbing his head and looking around frantically, "I will follow you until the ends of this friggin' earth, dude! You're friggin' _awesome_!"

Sanji grabbed Luffy's shoulder, making him stop jumping. "Luffy. Be cool," he whispered to him.

"What are you talkin' about, man! I'm _always _cool!" Luffy whispered back to him.

"Ego..." Sanji muttered.

"What was that, Sanji? I couldn't make that out."

"Nothing! Nothing, it doesn't matter!"

Rayleigh bent down and picked Bartolomeo up off of the ground. He sat him down on a bench near the bleachers, telling him to rest for a little while as he apologized, saying that 'he _did _ask for it'. When the teacher returned, he said, "Now! How about we see what level all of you are at?" He turned to the pink-haired boy. "You're Coby, aren't you?"

"Y-y-yes...!" he stuttered.

"All right, then! How about you go against... What is your name, young man?"

The long blonde-haired man that had been standing in the back, suddenly strutted to the front of the room, did a hair-flip and made a pose. "Oh? You mean _me_? Well, I'm only the most beautiful man alive! I'm known all throughout the school as the 'most loved'! Can't you all see the magnificent beauty that is reflected in my eyes? Can't you see the talent? The wonder? The admiration? I am the one that they call the beautiful, the one and only, the admired, adored and most spectacular Prince Cavendish of the White Horse! Don't you all just love me! Look at you all~! You're all gaping at my beauty! When the women of the school see me, they say: 'Ah~! Prince Cavendish-_sama_~! We love you~!' Don't you all agree? Aren't I just the most beautiful person you've ever seen?"

"I'm not sure, because I'm a guy, so I don't find guys attractive," Sanji replied, his mouth hanging open, "but I know that you're the most egotistical person I've met in my entire life."

"What do you mean! I'm the most modest man that had lived! I'm so modest, that I'm called all throughout the school-no! The world as the world's most modest man!" Cavendish said as he did a spin, letting his flowing locks twirl around him, sparkles twinkling above him.

"Dude! You're so annoying! You _do_ know that bragging about how modest you are is the complete opposite of modest!" Luffy snapped.

"Aw, shut up!" Cavendish snapped back, "All of you are just jealous of my perfection! My beauty! My intelligence! My-"

"Cavendish!" Rayleigh interrupted, "No one cares! Stop it, and let's get on with this club! Now, you will be fighting Coby, Cavendish. All right? Ready? Set? Go!"

"_I win_!" Cavendish announced as he threw a shining sword up into the air, Coby lying on the ground unconscious.

"Wait, wait! Stop it! Put that sword away! Those aren't allowed on campus! How in the world did you even get that in the first place?" Rayleigh roared. He helped Coby up and sat him down on the bench beside Bartolomeo, whom was now alive. "Are you all right, Coby? You are going to sit here next to Bartolomeo until you feel better, OK? Just tell me if you need anything, will you? Great!"

Coby watched as Rayleigh walked back to the others. He slowly turned his head around to face Bartolomeo. Coby jumped slightly when he saw the delinquent smiling at him. "Hey!" Bartolomeo said. Coby turned his head straight ahead again, his eyes wide and afraid. _Help me...! _Coby thought to himself.

"All right! Sanji and Luffy, go!" Rayleigh announced. Luffy suddenly felt a force pound against the side of his face, sending him flying across the room. "One hit!" he heard Rayleigh yell.

Luffy rose to his feet again, wiping the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. Sanji charged towards Luffy, striking out his leg in attempt to hit the teenager again. Luffy quickly ducked the kick. He threw up his hands, grasped Sanji's leg, and threw him down onto the floor in front of him. Luffy bounced up from where he had been squatting. He widened his eyes when he saw Sanji's leg coming toward his face again. Luffy threw himself to the ground behind Sanji, landing on his feet, forming a handstand.

Suddenly, Sanji was thrown against the gym wall when Luffy's feet pounded against Sanji's back. When the blonde-haired teenager fell down to the ground, he thought to himself, _How did he kick me from where he was? He was pretty far away from me! Also, how is he able to be so quick? It's like he's made of rubber, or something!_

"That enough! That's enough!" Rayleigh yelled as he ran over to help Sanji up. "That was wonderful! Yet... I doubt that was real martial arts, though... It was mostly random punches and kicks than using martial arts and anything more... But that is what this class is for: to teach you martial arts! I see great potential in all of you! Save for you, Coby... I've got some work to do with you... We'll work some more, soon! But, for now, let's go over here and breathe."

Bartolomeo's entire face shriveled up into a deep scowl. "What! I didn't even friggin' fight, yet!"

* * *

**Hey, everyone~! I missed yah~! **

***phew*! School's been really tough, recently! Thankfully, finals are almost over! Then, I'll be able to type as much as I want! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! :D Maybe I'll even finish Book 2 from my book? (Nah... That's really impossible, since I'm still on Chapter 3...) I'll get a new computer, and then I'll type more, since this stupid computer is breaking down...! I'm gonna miss this stupid, old computer! :,( But... you know the saying: If you love something, you let it go!**

**Anyways...! I really hope you liked this chapter! I still can't guarantee that I'll publish sooner, still, though... Sorry for the long wait! Bye, y'all! Hope you have a great starting to your long-awaited summer! ;)**


	13. I'm So Fancy

**It's summer everyone! :D :D :D Aren't you just SO excited! :)**

**_IN CASE NONE OF YOU NOTICED, READ THE SENTENCE BELOW!_  
**

**THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CHANGED TO RATED "T"**

**It's just because it was difficult to write about the One Piece characters without having them use curse words... I mean, really! It's like, really hard! I don't know if all of you guys reading this have written any One Piece fanfictions, but let me just tell you right now: It's EXTREMELY difficult to censor their language while still trying to make them seem the same! They're just OOC if you make it rated K+ (as much as I like K and K+, it's true!)**

**I was thinking about writing _Reclaiming_ _Life_, but I just love this book so much, that I decided to write this one! :) (I'm also writing this because my sister keeps yelling at me to stop writing my book and write this fanfiction...) So, here yah go! :D**

**Ah! Wait, wait! Before I forget or anything, I NEED to tell you guys something about the chapter that just came out, Chapter 749! _SPOILERS!_Law's benefactor and Doflamingo's brother, Corazon, his name...! His name means, in Spanish... _heart_! Do you catch my drift? If you don't, think of this: what is the name of Law's crew? What is all over his body in the form of a tattoo? HEARTS, DUDE! HEARTS! I just... I just want to say that...! Because I like other languages...! :D You can actually ask me what a bunch of words in One Piece that are in a different language mean! (Luffy's Gear Third+Armament Haki attack Grizzly Magnum means 'Great Grizzly', because 'magnum' is Latin for 'great' or 'powerful') But not everything! Jeez, man! I'm not bilingual! God...!**

**So, in this chapter, I'm going to go off on a fairly different route than the path that the original One Piece story goes on. For example, the ones that came first in the original were: Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, (Vivi), Chopper, Robin, Franky, Brook. But, in this one, the order will be: Usopp, (Vivi [since Vivi was one of Usopp's friends]), Zoro, Sanji, Nami, Franky, Robin, Brook, Chopper. (I'm making Chopper last since he doesn't go to their school, so... You know what? You'll see!) There you go! That's the whole plan, for those that read these Author's Notes. I'm still thinking about whether or not I want to add Vivi's whole past-thing, how they help her out and stuff. So, please tell me if you want the crew to redo the whole Alabasta thing in here. That'd be really helpful if you did! :) **

**I don't want to talk about much, even though I have some stuff to talk about, because I'm listening to this song that really describes what I want to write about, so... I hope you like this chapter! :)**

**DISCLAIMER:**** I don't own the song that is in this fanfiction! I don't own any of the songs that will ever be sung in this fanfiction!**

* * *

Ace's eyes bolted open, a huge grin spread across his face. He sprang from his mattress and frolicked down the hallway to the bathroom. Sparkles glittered above his smiling head as he twirled through the house. However, he slammed into Luffy the moment he got to the bathroom.

Luffy blinked groggily, gradually looking down to where Ace lay on the floor. "Oh... Sorry about that, Ace... I'm just waiting until Sabo finishes in here..." Luffy was only dressed in his boxers with a pillow still in his hand. From within the bathroom, Sabo could be heard singing at the top of his lungs, "_Rooftop like we bringin' '88 back! Wha! Bring the hooks in, where the bass at?__" _

Ace frowned and rose to his feet. "Again!? How long has he been in there, Luffy?"

"_I'm so fancy~! You already know~! I'm in the fast lane~! From L.A. from to Tokyo~!_" Sabo sang.

Luffy's face wrinkled up in his sleepiness. He rubbed his eyes with his palms as he groaned in thought. "Uh... About a half an hour, I think..." he murmured.

Ace's face suddenly formed an enormous frown. "No friggin' way, dude!" Ace stuck his head out far. He whipped it in the direction of the door, making his entire head of hair flip across his face. "Sabo! Get the heck out of there, yah jerk! You're not a girl! You shouldn't take an half an hour in there, you selfish jerk! Stop doin' your hair already, Sabo!"

Suddenly, Sabo's singing from within the bathroom stopped. The bathroom door slowly cracked open, steam from the shower pouring onto their ankles. Ace and Luffy looked up at their older brother. He only had a long towel wrapped around his waist that went down a little below his knees. In his hand he held a Rage beamed from his eyes. Sabo lifted up his lip as he began to talk, showing his gritted teeth, "_No one _tells Sabo to stop tryin' to be _fancy_!"

Luffy leaned over to Ace and whispered loudly to him, "What's he mean by that, Ace?"

"He thinks that 'being fancy' means being a girl, Luffy!" Ace replied, without trying to whisper at all.

"_NO!_" Sabo barked. "My 'being fancy' is making myself as _perfect_ as possible! If I don't make my hair this fancy all the time, now, I'll... _die!_"

Ace and Luffy gasped in horror.

Sabo scratched his chin and sighed. "So... One: I'm done in the bathroom. And two: would you guys like to go out for breakfast? It is the weekend, after all! How does that sound?"

The two brothers that had been kneeling on the floor suddenly sprang to their feet. "That sounds awesome, Sabo! Ooh~! I'm so excited! It's been so long since we've eaten out together! Hehe! I'm gonna buy so much meat!"

"Sabo! I'm totally cool with going out to dinner, but _you've _got to be the one paying!" Ace told his older brother.

Sabo smiled at him. "It's all right! You don't have to worry, Ace, I will!" He turned to Luffy and looked at him seriously. "But! If we're going to go, then you two have got to get ready quickly, OK?"

"Yeah, sure! I'll get ready first, Lu-" Suddenly, Ace was interrupted by the bathroom door closing in his face. Ace stood in front of it for a minute before slamming his head into it. He looked up to the sky and cursed, "_Damn you, Luffy!_"

Finally, Ace and Luffy had finished getting ready. The three brothers skipped out of their house toward Ace's awesome new car. Sabo jumped into the driver's seat, Ace into the passenger seat, and Luffy in the middle back seat. Hancock watched from her window at the crazy brothers spring into their car, which suddenly started to bounce up and down the moment they turned on the blaring radio. Buggy's eye twitched as he watched his insane new neighbors speed out of their driveway. "What the hell...?" Buggy murmured.

Luffy stuck his head out the window and waved happily at Zoro, whom was watering his garden. His friend waved back with a cheerful smile on his face.

Ace turned around to his little brother and asked him, "Do you know that guy, baby bro?"

"Yep! He's my new best friend at school!" Luffy grinned.

Sabo and Ace smiled. "I'm so happy that you have so many amazing new friends, Luffy! It's awesome that you love this place so much!

Luffy giggled, "Shishishishi! Yeah, it is!"

Ace smirked and nudged at his brother's leg. "Hey, baby bro~! Got any girlfriends, yet~? I bet the ladies love yah! After all..." Ace cleared his throat, did a hairflip, and then winked, "...you are this hotties' brother!"

"W-what?" Luffy's eyes twitched in disgust.

"Aw~! Thanks, man~! You shouldn't have~!" Sabo giggled at Ace.

Ace's eyes shot wide open. He whipped his head over. "What! You idiot! I wasn't talking about you! I was talking about me! What the hell, you egotistical bastard!" Ace rolled his eyes and muttered, "God...! Who does that? So egotistical..."

"Eh! What was that, Ace?" Sabo snapped, "Who are you calling egotistical! What you said was _completely_ egotistical!"

Finally, the three brothers pulled up to the restaurant. "Here we are!" Luffy announced in glee as they stood in front of the doorway. "_Sugei, sugei_~! Look at this place! It's so fancy and cool! How do we have the money to afford this?"

"Well," Sabo replied, "one: don't you remember, Luffy? Have you already forgotten that we just figured out that our families are super rich and that we're actually millionaires? And, two: I got a certificate~!" Sabo suddenly pulled out a flier that said that he had won free breakfast at any restaurant near where they lived.

"_Sugei, sugei_~! How'd you win that, Sabo?" Luffy's eyes lit up in excitement.

Sabo suddenly lowered the paper. "I lost a tiny lottery at my work, but they gave me this because they... 'felt bad' that I had lost..." he answered.

Ace suddenly burst out laughing, "That's not true, isn't it! They didn't 'feel bad'! You started complaining, didn't you? So, to make you stop crying, they had to give you something special!"

Sabo's face turned red. "T-that's not true, you bastard! I just... N-never mind... It's useless..." The eldest brother turned back to Luffy, "Anyway, the _main_ reason why we're here is because they have an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet today!"

Ace and Luffy's faces brightened in enthusiasm. "An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet! That sounds amazing!" they giggled in excitement.

Luffy looked up at the sign and read it aloud. "Zeff's Baratie?" He turned back to Sabo and asked him, "What's a baratie?"

"It's not a real word, Luffy..." Ace replied, "That doesn't matter, baby brother. But! What _does _matter is the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet! Let's go, baby brother."

Ace, Luffy, and Sabo walked into the restaurant. They walked up to the counter server. "Welcome to Zeff's Baratie, gentlemen! How many will be eating today?" the woman behind the counter smiled.

Ace laughed. "Oh! Well, you could say three, but..." He smirked at his brothers. "...we eat the equivalent of eighteen people...each!" Ace turned to Luffy, "How many is that, baby brother?"

"54!" Luffy shouted out surprisingly quick.

"You got that?" Ace smiled at the woman.

"No, actually..." the woman replied as she stared him in confusion. "Can you just tell which it'll be, please? Are there three of you or not?"

Ace blinked and straightened up. "O-oh... T-there's three of us, ma'am. I'm sorry about that..."

"That's what I thought," she said. She grabbed three menus and led the brothers over to a booth beside the window. "Here's your seat. Is this good?" she asked them as they sat down in the seat.

"Yes, this is nice. Thank you!" Sabo replied as he sat down on a booth alone, Ace and Luffy sitting down next to each other. The two black-haired brothers turned to each other, looked at each other for a quick second in shock, and waved at the other happily. When the woman left, Sabo turned to the two and asked them, "Do you know what you want?"

Ace and Luffy nodded. "Yes! We're ready!"

"Yeah, me too!" Sabo smiled back.

After a minute a waiter walked up to their booth. He had a black suit on, blonde hair, and very strange eyebrows. "Welcome to Zeff's Baratie! My name is Sanji and I'll be your waiter for this evening-"

"Sanji? Sanji! No way!" Luffy's face lit up at the sight of him. "What's up, Sanji! How are you?"

Sanji blinked in shock at the jumpy teenager. "L-Luffy? What are you doing here?"

"I'm eating breakfast here! What are _you_ doing here?" Luffy told him.

"I'm the sous chef here! I'm the manager and head chef's son!" Sanji explained. He shook his head and looked back at his notepad. "Excuse me, Luffy. I'm at work, I can't talk to you casually. That's for school."

Ace and Sabo blinked. "You two know each other?"

"Yeah! He's another one of my best friends at school! He's really cool! You two would like him a lot!" Luffy told his older brothers.

Sanji looked up slightly, a small frown on his face. He, truthfully, wouldn't call himself one of Luffy's _best friends_. They were just friendly acquaintances. "Now, would you like something to drink? Maybe water or a soda...?"

"We'll all have water," Sabo said, Ace and Luffy nodding.

Ace chimed in, "And I think we're ready to order."

"Oh! You are?" Sanji replied with a smile, "That's wonderful!" He turned back to his notepad. "What would all of you like to eat today?"

"Um... I think I'll go first, then," Luffy looked at his brothers before saying, "I'd like to eat everything on the menu, thanks!"

Sanji slowly lifted up his head and blinked at him in confusion. Luffy was simply grinning at him as he held up his menu for him to grab. The blonde-haired young man gradually grabbed Luffy's menu and tucked it under his arm. He turned to Ace. "A-and what would you like, sir?"

"I'd like the same thing!" Ace told him, handing him his menu as well.

"Me too!" Sabo replied, also giving him his menus.

Sanji's eye twitched. "O-of course... For the burgers... how would you like those cooked? What kinds of salads would you like? Would you like fries or potatoes? How about-"

Sabo interrupted him, "Ah! Whatever you'd like, please! We really don't care, actually!"

Sanji nodded slowly. "Yeah... sure... Would you like that served all at the same time?"

The brothers looked at each other. "Uh... Sure~!" they replied.

"In that case... would you...um...like to move to a bigger table?"

Ace frowned at them. "I _told _you guys that we should have ordered for 54 people!"

* * *

**Sorry about that ending... I just want to FINALLY finish this. Besides, I'll continue with the rest on the next chapter. ****For those reading _Reclaiming Life_, don't worry: I'm working on the chapter. It'll come out soon... hopefully...**

**Did you guys like this chapter~? ;D I sure hope you did! You better have...! :( It's all right if you didn't, though. Everyone has an opinion, and that's all right!**

**I had hurt my finger, so it kind of hurt to type, but that's all right! Anything for my readers...! God! You guys are so awesome~! I love reading all of your comments! They make me feel so happy! Honestly, when I first came on here, I was NOT expecting how many of you guys would actually like it! I tried to write on a different website, but no one ever liked anything I wrote. It's so awesome to have so many of you liking it! Thank you so much! :)**

**I thought that I'd have more time to write during the summer! Phew! Was I wrong... I also haven't really been in the mood to write this part... What's coming next in this story is so exciting! You guys are gonna love it! :D (Kind of...!)**

**Anyhow, I'm done with this chapter! (Thank goodness...!) Until next time, buddies~! Bye bye~! :D**


	14. Don't You Dare Touch My Food!

**Welcome!**

**Mission To Publish This Chapter Earlier: FAILURE... Ugh! Sorry, guys... I just have so much stuff going on... I'm going on a super important trip at the end of July and I'm also writing my own book and stuff like that, so I think that these delays should be expected...**

**I decided to hurry through this thing... because... I'm kind of bored of this Sanji thing, but I want to get started on- O_O Oh, wait... I'm not supposed to tell you about that yet... You'll just have to figure it out on your own! :)**

***sob sob sob* I've been trying to occupy myself with other comics and shows to watch/read while I wait for Wednesday... I've been finding really good ones, however...! I can't find the rest of the episodes/volumes anywhere! It's like they're not in America AT ALL! I've also become a little interested in Marvel comics (X-Men) but can't find any of the volumes I want to read online! (I found a few samples of it, though, and-Wow, does that stuff SCREAMS the 60's! O_O But, you know...The plots that I'm trying to find are pretty interesting/so-weird-that-it's-hilarious.)**

**I'm not too proud of this chapter, actually... I'm grabbing at straws here, OK! Please don't hate... :(**

* * *

Sanji sighed in relief as he walked away from Luffy and his brothers' table. He didn't dare look behind him. They were too crazy...! Who in the world orders everything on the menu?

"Hey! Hey, you! Waiter!" Sanji stopped and turned to his side. A big, broad man that looked very much like a gorilla scowled at him from the table he sat at with about twenty other men. "Come over here, boy!" he roared.

Sanji frowned at him and came over to him. "What is it?"

"Where's my food!" the gorilla man growled.

The blonde-haired young man sighed. "It's being made, sir. You ordered, like, ten minutes ago. Be patient. You have a lot of people at your table, your orders will take a while."

The gorilla man rose to his feet. "Well, I want it right now! I didn't come here to wait an hour for my food!"

"You aren't waiting an hour! It's been _ten minutes_! Calm down!" Sanji scowled.

"We are going to be late for an important meeting if we don't have our food right now!" he barked. "We need our food right now!"

Sabo turned around to the commotion. He nudged Ace and Luffy's arms and pointed over at the argument. "Hey, Ace! Luffy! Check that out. Someone's being impatient."

"And rude," Ace snorted.

"And annoying!" Luffy said bluntly. "They should shut up before someone gets mad."

"They might have to be kicked out, baby brother," Ace told him.

The three brothers looked up to see about ten waiters coming over with tons of plates with steaming, delicious-looking food sitting atop them approaching their table. Their eyes beamed in delight at the sight of their breakfast. Being all crazy about food, that made all of their hearts flutter. Especially... Luffy's... Luffy lunged forward and gripped onto Ace's arm. "Holy shit, Ace! Look at all that deliciousness~!"

"I know, bro~!" Ace giggled.

Sabo rolled his eyes with a smile. "Calm down, you two! And put those napkins on your laps before they get here; this is a fancy restaurant."

The two of them quickly threw their napkins onto their laps, drool practically dripping onto their laps from their lips. The many waiters stopped at their table, setting down the thousands of plates onto the table. Luffy's big, black eyes glittered in excitement. "I can't wait to eat all of this~!"

"Yeah, me too, baby brother!" Ace agreed.

When the waiters left, Sabo turned to them. "All right! Let's dig, in shall we?"

"We shall!" Ace nodded.

"We must!" Luffy looked down. However, before he could bite into his food, the angry costumer beside them, who was still arguing with Sanji, suddenly slammed his enormous wrestler fist into Sanji's chest, sending him flying out the window that was directly near the three brothers' table. When he flew by them, he slid against their table, making their food come with him. Luffy stopped. "M...meshi...?"

Sabo and Ace stopped. They looked over at Luffy in horror. "Calm down, little bro!" Ace placed a hand on Luffy's shoulder. "Please, little guy, do... not... mess up this place, OK?"

"Meshi..." Luffy whispered.

Sanji sat up from where he sat on the grass outside. He rubbed the spot on his head where the glass had slammed against it. "What the hell...?" he muttered. "What is wrong with that costumer-"

"MEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIII!"

Sanji blinked at the sound of the scream and looked up at the window above him. He stared up in shock as he suddenly saw tables fly up in the air from inside the building. He sighed when he noticed that it was Luffy's scream. "Don't tell me..." Sanji muttered to himself, "Don't tell me that that was Luffy's food that I took with me when I went by..."

"What the hell is up with this brat!" Sanji could hear the costumer growl.

"Of course... Who else could it be!" the young cook muttered as he rose to his feet. Suddenly, Sanji's eyes bolted open when he saw a hand coming toward his face. It stopped right at his nose before it could slam straight into his skull. All of a sudden, it vanished just as quickly as it appeared. Sanji stared out into space for a little while before whispering. "What the hell...? Was that a hand?" He looked through the broken window to see Luffy score the costumer straight in the face, sending him soaring through the restaurant. "Did... Did Luffy do that?" He paused. "No! That's impossible! People's arms can stretch! Get it together, Sanji!"

Ace sprang to his feet. "Little Brother! Stop it! You're going to make us pay more than we should!"

"You're still paying more than one normally should," Sanji replied from outside.

Ace turned to him and blinked. "Wha... what do you mean?"

"You ordered almost everything on the menu! What did you expect?" Sanji explained bluntly.

"Oh, no. There's been some mistake," Sabo laughed, "We didn't technically order everything on the menu!"

"Yes, you did."

"No, no, no. What I'm trying to tell you is that we ordered the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet! See, I have a coupon for it!" Sabo took the coupon out of his breast pocket. "See! So, we didn't actually order everything on the menu."

"And what _I'm_ trying to tell _you_ is that, according to what you _told _us, you did, indeed, order everything on the menu." Sanji said.

Sabo looked at him for a long time, beads of sweat beginning to form and roll down his face. "C-come again?"

"You didn't order the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. You didn't tell us that that was what you were ordering. You told us that you would like 'everything on the menu', _not_ the buffet. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that means that you're paying for every single thing." Sanji pointed at the damages that Luffy was creating, "You also have to pay for the mess that your little brother is making!"

Ace turned to Sabo. He saw Sabo suddenly stop holding onto the menu where it floated to the carpet on the ground. Ace whistled and whispered loudly to him, "You really screwed up, man."

Sabo's head flew over to glare at Ace. "You shut it," he snarled.

Ace's eyes widened. He turned back around and whispered, "OK!"

"Who the hell are you!" the costumer growled as he tried to swing at Luffy with his enormous fist. Luffy sprang up and dodged it, making his opponent smash an enormous dent into the wall.

"Luffy!" he replied, quickly stretching and slapping his hand back to score his enemy in the face so that no one would see that he was made out of rubber. "What's yours?"

"I am Don Krieg! I am the strongest man in this entire city! No one can beat me, child! _No one_," Don Krieg challenged.

"Oh? The strongest, eh?" Luffy struck Don Krieg straight in the chest, sending him onto the ground. "Maybe I can change that, hmm?"

Don Krieg rose to his feet and burst out laughing. "You think that you can defeat _me_, boy? What a joke! You're just some bratty monkey!"

Luffy's eyes widened and gasped as he put his head back in shock. "Bratty monkey? Bratty monkey!" He sprang into the air, throwing thousands of punches soaring toward him like a machine gun. "_That's rude to monkeys!_" Luffy roared.

Sanji watched from the window in shock. How was he doing that with his arms? It was like he was... The blonde-haired cook gasped and took a few steps away from the window. "No...! It couldn't be! Is he...?"

"Luffy! Little Brother!" Luffy looked up to see Sabo and Ace flailing their arms about frantically. "Stop it, Luffy! Stop it! You're going to use up all of our money, you imbecile!"

"O-oh!" Luffy was about to stop when Don Krieg suddenly fired at the young man with an enormous gun that he got from somewhere (don't ask).

"Coward!" he roared, "No one starts a fight with me and gets out of it so easily! It's time for you _and _this restaurant to pay!"

"Stop, Don Krieg!" a thin man grabbed his boss' arm. He had scruffy black hair with a small mustache and beard. Dark circles hung underneath his eyes. His white jacket, that held a red serpent design on each side of it, was open, showing a green shirt underneath it. He had gray pant and on his head was a white and blue striped headband. Finally, on his ears were two spherical earrings. "You promised that you would not cause an uproar! Everyone is starving after the government took away our valuables and possessions! If you want food, just wait for it! Please, Boss!"

Don Krieg frowned at him and pushed him away. "Oh, please! We have places to be! I don't have time to sit in such a fancy place and wait for food to come to us! That's absurd, Gin!"

Gin's eyes held desperation in them. "What do you mean 'we have places to be', Don Krieg! He had nothing left! There is no place for us! Patience is-"

"Shut up, Gin!" Don Krieg's fist slammed against Gin's face, sending him zooming into the wall. Luffy's eyes widened at the sight.

"What is going on here?" Don Krieg turned to a short man with a braided mustache, a peg-leg, and an extremely tall chef's hat.

"Who are you?" Don Krieg growled.

"Zeff. I am this restaurant's owner!" he announced. He looked around the room. "What the hell has happened to this place! Who do you think you are, wreaking my restaurant!"

"I am Don Krieg!" he roared. "And from this point forward... I own this place!"

* * *

**Meh... Sorry that it's so short. I just really wanted to publish this soon, so... I'm also not too pleased with the ending, actually. But, what you've gotta do is what you've gotta do! You guys will like the next section! :) When this Sanji-thing is done, the excitement will start coming!**

**Guess what guys! XD So, I was writing my book on Microsoft Word and I was looking up the synonyms they had on there for the word 'flapping'. Guess what one of the synonyms was! XD One of them was: 'run about like a headless chicken (Dictionary Form)' I added the "Dictionary Form on there just because that's what it said... But isn't that weird?! XD *sigh* Good ol' Microsoft Word! **

**Oh, right, right! I need to ask those of you that REALLY like this fanfiction: how do you feel about ACTION AND ADVENTURE books. I NEED you guys to answer. Please! If you can, PLEASE tell me.**

**I've been thinking about changing my pen-name... *cough cough* Excuse me, that was random! :)**

**Thank you SO MUCH for all of the wonderful reviews and comments! :D I love all of you! You make my day so much brighter! Thank you all! :)**


	15. Without Hesitation

**Welcome back to another chapter of _Serendipity_! ****How are you today? I hope you're feelin' well! :)**

**IF YOU READ _RECLAIMING LIFE_, PLEASE READ THIS: Sorry about the delay on the chapter... :( I'm at a really big mind blank right now. I have the beginning of the chapter all sorted out, but I'm having trouble with what to do for the middle and end of it. So, if you'd please just give me a little more time to think about it, that'd be great! :) Sorry for making you wait if you like the book. I've just got so much going on in my head right now that it's been hard to get onto writing any of my books lately. But, I just want to inform you guys that I am NOT quitting on the book. I will publish at one point, but I don't know how long it'll be. It's hard trying to make every chapter try to be long (longer than these chapters, that is).**

**Hopefully, I can finish up this one battle with Luffy and Don Krieg soon because I just CAN'T wait to get onto the next part. It's gonna be great, guys. You're gonna love it! **

**I was reading over my most recent chapters and I was shocked at how many bad words were in there... When I think about it, they kind of WOULD say those words, it's just that I'm shocked that _I_ wrote that! I'm not the kind of person to say bad words, trust me...if I was, there would be a lot more curse words in these Author's Notes...**

**My birthday's coming up in about two weeks and I'm hoping to get an awesome new laptop! Hopefully, that will make it a bit easier to do things on my computer without it shutting down because the batteries are dying. I have a charger, but... that's not going to be very helpful soon. If my laptop shuts down before I can save all of my books I'm writing, I swear... Imma gonna die... O_O So, yeah... I've been worrying that my laptop is going to die completely for the last two months or so... so... yeah...**

**Hmm... I'm not too pleased about how I set this up... I think it's because I just rushed with this one rather than carefully planning it out like I did with the other ones... *sigh* Oh well... |:I**

**Anyways, now that I've got my Adele _Rolling in the Deep _remixes queued up, I'm ready to start typin'! So... let's get started! BD**

**(You don't mind if I make this long enough to finish off the fight, right? OK. I hope not because that's how it's gonna be today. ;D) **

* * *

"Own this place? Own it!" Zeff snarled. "Who the hell do you think you are coming in here and claiming this place as your own! _I_ am the owner of this restaurant, not you! Now, please, leave this instant!" Zeff stood firm as he looked up at Don Krieg in the now-empty restaurant. Everyone had fled in worry that they would get hurt during the fight that Don Krieg had begun.

"Leave? Not a chance," Don Krieg laughed.

"No, Don Krieg! Don't-" Gin tried.

His boss whipped his head around to him and gritted his teeth. "You got something that you'd like to say, Gin?" he snapped.

Gin took a few steps away from him, his face instantly turning pale. "O-of course not, boss..." He looked away and sat back down on one of the chairs behind them. As much as he wanted to do something, there was no way that he would be able to with a leader like Don Krieg.

Luffy scowled at Don Krieg. "What the hell was that!" he snarled.

Don Krieg turned to him with a deep frown stretched across his face. "What was what, _boy_?"

"Why the hell did you just talk to your friend like that!" he snapped. "He is your friend. You should respect that, not be throwing them away!" After he said that, he changed his older brother's screams of anger to cheers of encouragement.

"That's my brother! My baby brother!" they cheered.

Don Krieg widened his eyes at Luffy for a while before bursting out into a fit of laughter. "My _friend_? What a cheesy statement! You think that he's my _friend_? What a child...! I don't have any friends! I have _minions_."

Luffy's eyes burst wide open. Don Krieg was the exact kind of person that Luffy hated the most. He sprang through the air and struck his opponent straight in the gut, sending him flying towards Ace and Sabo's table.

"Ace!" Sabo screamed, whipping his head to look at him.

"Sabo!" Ace yelled, looking at him quickly as well.

"You know what he gotta do!" Sabo ordered.

"Of course I do!" Ace nodded.

Before Don Krieg could either break the table, land on them, or fly out the broken window, Sabo and Ace put their arms up, making the huge man collide with their hands, trying their best to stop Don Krieg from breaking anything else. If he broke anything more, that would double their paycheck. They pushed as hard as they could to try to stop the force pushing against him. "Hooooooooooolllllllddddddddd, Aaaaaaaaaaaaacccccceeeeeeeeeeeee!" Sabo yelled.

"IIIIIIIII aaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmm!"

Finally, they pushed Don Krieg away from them. However, it caused him to fly out the other window, shattering that instead, thus...making Ace and Sabo have to pay more money. "Dammit!" they screamed.

Luffy sprang through the window after him. They now stood on the grass outside. The cooks that had previously been in the kitchen ran out to watch the scene. Zeff stood staring out the window at them. He turned around to see Sanji walking up to him. "Sanji! Who is that brat?" he asked him.

"He's someone I know from school. He's nice and a pretty worthy opponent when it comes to fighting. He also likes his food... but... I didn't think that he liked it _that_ much..." Sanji muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"When he hit me and sent me flying out through the window, I accidentally pushed their food out the window, too... And that's when he started attacking him..." Sanji told the owner.

Zeff's eyes widened in confusion. "What a odd boy...!"

"Yeah..." he nodded. Sanji turned around to Gin, who was standing behind him. "And you! Didn't you come here about two days ago? You were the one that was starving and hungry, weren't you?"

"Uh... yeah..." Gin nodded. "That was me."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"Well, the government took our base away from us about a year ago because they realized where we lived. They sold it out because, apparently, they told us, 'Criminals have no home but in jail'. They tried to arrest us, but we fled before they did. Finding places to eat or live was hard after that..." Gin began.

"W-wait a second," Sanji interrupted, "Are you telling me that the government kicked you out of your home because you were criminals?"

"Yes. This law isn't talked about very much to regular people. But, to criminals, it's very well-known. Criminals aren't allowed to use or have anything that is under government property. Since our previous base was once and still was part of government property, we weren't allowed to have it anymore because, according to the World Government, if you break the law once, then you're vowing that you will not live by their rules, thus meaning that you can't own anything abiding to their rules."

Sanji's eyes widened in shock. "What a shitty law!" he snarled, "What if you don't want to be a criminal anymore, you know?"

"You don't know? The only way that you can 'pay for your sins' is if you go to jail for the right amount of days, weeks, months, or even years," Gin explained.

Sanji shook his head. "What a crappy world we're livin' in...!" he hissed.

Gin continued with his story, "I was the one in Don Krieg's gang that was ordered to go out and find a restaurant that would serve to even us criminals. That was you nice people. The moment I told Don Krieg about this place, he immediately wanted you to become our cook so that we wouldn't have to search for a place to eat anymore."

Sanji blinked. "M-me...?"

"Yes..." Gin nodded slowly. "Don Krieg has never been a patient man... I'm sorry that he made such a huge outburst... I didn't know that he would do this to you people. I'm very sorry."

"That's all right," Zeff sighed. He smirked at him. "We're not the ones that are going to clean up this place."

Gin blinked.

He pointed at the two men behind them whom were wallowing in their own misery that they had to spend so much of their precious money on an entire store just because of their little brother's short temper. "They don't look too happy that they're gonna pay, so we're gonna make them and their brother do it. It's what they get if they're so worried about paying for all of this."

"I sort of feel sorry for them..." Sanji whispered, watching as they pounded their fists on the table and pointed at all the damages, trying to figure out how much all of it would cost.

Meanwhile, Luffy and Don Krieg narrowed their eyes in hatred at one another. "You disappoint me, boy!" Don Krieg growled, "Children like you should not be fighting like this. They'll only get hurt!"

"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't know that," Luffy growled.

"You obviously don't know what true strength is!" Don Krieg barked. "If you did, you would not be bragging about 'your own.'"

"I know plenty well what the definition of 'strength' is!" Luffy snapped at him, gritting his teeth together.

"You do?" Don Krieg laughed. "Then, you would know about _this_! _Meet the definition of strength, boy!_" Don Krieg pulled a shield from behind his back, which fired a huge bomb from the center of it.

"I'm not afraid of bombs!" Luffy announced as he sprang into the air and confidently punched it straight on. The moment his hand collided with the bomb, it exploded into a fiery conflagration. He landed back down on the ground with only a few bruises.

Don Krieg raised an eyebrow at him. "All right, so maybe you are a bit tougher than I thought. However, can you take this!" The next thing he fired were long, striped spears. Luffy tried to turn before it could hit him, but he was too late. The spear sank deep into Luffy's shin. His heart almost stopped in the pain, forcing himself to let out a scream of agony.

"Poison!" Luffy hissed to himself.

His opponent again burst into laughter. "Can you tell now? Can you see what true strength is now?"

Don Krieg stopped and watched as Luffy grabbed onto the spear and pulled it out from his leg. "This is not strength, Don Krieg. This is arrogant pride! Strength is not determined by the power of your weapons or by how hard you can punch, it is determined by the size of your heart and dreams!"

Don Krieg stared at him for a few seconds before bursting into a fit of laughter. "Heart and Dreams you say? There's nothing I hate more than people who talk about such childish ideas!"

Suddenly, at the speed of light, Luffy sprang onto Don Krieg and gripped his neck. "Compassion and Determination are not _childish_!" he hissed. Don Krieg coughed as the young man threw him to the ground, cracking the earth. The huge man got to his feet and wiped the blood away from his mouth. He watched as Luffy landed on his feet, gripping onto his leg. "Dammit...!" the teenager hissed.

"Do you like those poison spears, boy? I find them quite handy, myself," Don Krieg smirked.

Luffy gritted his teeth together and threw out his hand, deciding to ignore him completely. His arm stretched so far that it almost hit the nose of a man driving in his car behind them. "_Holy shit!_" the man screamed as Luffy's hand shot back and scored Don Krieg in the gut. Don Krieg stood his ground, making the dirt under his feet clot up behind his boot.

"What the hell is going on over there!" the passenger in the man's car behind them yelled.

"Like hell I care! I'm outta here!" Luffy turned around to see them speeding away way past the speed limit.

Don Krieg smirked at Luffy. "Your power is quite impressive, kid. You can stretch like rubber, yes? Is it that famed Vegapunk's work? Now how did you get into contact with that?"

"Vegapunk did nothing to me," Luffy told him.

"Hmm? Well, there was something that Vegapunk created that altered a human's blood, isn't there?" Don Krieg said.

Luffy smirked and sprang into the air. "Vegapunk didn't _create_ anything!" Don Krieg put up his arm in time for Luffy's fist to strike his forearm.

Don Krieg threw him away with a scowl on his face. "Don't mock me! He did something, didn't he?"

Luffy didn't respond. He threw out another punch, but his opponent caught it and threw the teenager behind him. Luffy massaged his head as he sat up. When he turned back to Don Krieg, he saw him bring out a long spear with a shield in between the dagger on the end and the handle. Luffy blinked at it. "What the hell is that thing...?" he whispered to himself. He shook his head, deciding to ignore it.

He shot out another hand, but Don Krieg blocked it with his spear. The moment Luffy's hand collided with the shield, a huge explosion erupted on his fist. Luffy screamed and threw his hand back, blowing on it. "This is Daisenso, the Mighty Battle Spear! It's a spear that explodes each time someone hits it. The harder you strike it, the more powerful the explosion will be!" Don Krieg told Luffy.

Luffy scowled at it.

"Are you frightened _now_, boy?" Don Krieg intimidated, "Surely, now you see what _true_ power is!"

"I'm not afraid of anything," Luffy hissed.

Don Krieg broke into another fit of laughter. "You're just a child. Don't be so proud, boy, when you don't even have enough strength to have the right to say such confident words!"

Luffy ignored him and sprang forward again. Luffy continued to hit the spear with all his might, each explosion stronger than the last. Sanji blinked at Luffy in confusion. He turned to his father and hissed to him, "What the hell is he doing! That's plain suicide!"

Zeff smiled. "This is amazing...! What an honor to see such a fight!"

Sanji blinked at him in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about, Zeff! He's killing himself out there! How could you say that this is an 'honor'? Seeing someone kill himself is not an 'honor'!"

Zeff turned to the blonde-haired teenager. "There are certain people in the world, Sanji, who fight without blinking. These people, with no hesitation, fight without fear. While other men will think through whether or not their next move will cost them their lives, there are certain men that jump into a battle without a slight doubt. In a fight, if you stop to think, you're risking your life. It is an honor to see a fight with those certain men that do not hesitate nor do they blink during battle."

The blonde-haired teenager frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"

Zeff smiled at him and stared back at Luffy, "You wouldn't understand, of course."

Sanji blinked. He looked at his friend as well and decided to ignore his father's statement.

Back at Ace and Sabo's booth, Sabo lifted his head up a little, his blonde locks still draped on the table a bit. "Hey, Ace? Do you hear that noise? It sounds sort of like screaming and...explosions..."

Ace raised his head slightly. He blinked and listened. "Yeah... I guess I do notice that. What'd you think that is, Sabo?"

"I'm not-" They stopped. Their minds backtracked back to when their food ran away, to when Luffy began hitting that huge gorilla guy, and then to when Luffy started wrecking the restaurant, the entire reason why they were sulking. "You don't think...?"

Luffy continued firing shots at the explosive battle spear. Bruises, burns, and cuts tainted Luffy's tanned skin. Blood dripped from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Even still, through all of Luffy's wounds and sores, his smirk of determination remained spread across his face. "Giving up, yet, boy?" Don Krieg taunted at him.

"Oh, please!" Luffy chuckled, "I give up when I get bored. Even though I hate you, I must say that you're not boring...yet!"

Don Krieg scowled at the young man. Luffy pounced one final time, this time, his fist struck the dagger in a way that made a strange sound vibrate across the clearing. Sanji and Gin looked at the scene in confusion. "What'd he do?" Sanji whispered to Zeff.

"He hit it so many times," Zeff told him, "that he..." Don Krieg looked back at his spear in shock. The dagger was shattered in a thousand pieces, chunks of metal scattered across the grass below his feet, while the shield was cracked in many different spots. "...broke it," Zeff finished.

Sanji, Gin, and Don Krieg gasped at it in surprise. "What the hell, you brat! You broke my Daisenso! Now you've done it!" Don Krieg barked, throwing down his broken spear. "At least I've still got my armor! Nothing can break through this!" Don Krieg pulled back his coat to reveal his golden chest armor. Don Krieg looked up at Luffy sprang into the air. He sneered, "You don't have too much energy left, boy! The explosions must have taken a lot out of you, eh?"

Luffy fired down thousands of fists, that hammered down upon Don Krieg's armor. However, when he fell back down to the grass, the armor didn't have a single dent on it. He cracked his knuckles as he stared at the armor, as if plotting how to take his opponent out.

"Can't you see, boy? There's no way that you can take me out!" Don Krieg laughed. "You had better just give up now, it's better for your health, after all!" He wasn't going to let Luffy go, though. No one could expect to simply walk away from a fight with him, thinking that they could enjoy their lives peacefully after that!

Luffy stretched his arms out and back behind him. He prepared himself, and then, finally, charged toward his enemy as fast as he could run. Don Krieg stood his ground, thinking nothing of him. Luffy's palms pounded against Don Krieg's golden armor as hard as his muscles could force of his remaining energy. Under his hands, the gold shattered to dust, just as his spear's dagger had. Luffy's fist made it past the broken armor and struck Don Krieg's heart at light speed, sending him into shock. Luffy and Don Krieg fell to the grass, however, only one of them still had their feet standing firm on the earth.

"_LUFFY!_" Luffy blinked in confusion at the loud screams behind him. He tried to turn around to see who was calling for him when two flashes flew past him. Two legs flung out and kicked Don Krieg far out into space, making a star twinkle high above in the blue sky. Luffy looked back at the ones that shot his enemy out into the air. Ace and Sabo grabbed onto Luffy, each holding onto one shoulder. "Your brothers were worried sick, you fool!" they chanted at the same time.

"Luffy, you wasted our money!" Ace cried.

"You could have told us to take care of him, Luffy!" Sabo told him.

"Because we're _awesome_!" they winked at the same time.

Luffy frowned at his older brothers. "B-but I'm awesome, too!"

"But you wreck things too easily, Luffy! Look at what you did to this place!" Sabo said. He gestured to the neighborhood and, especially, at the restaurant. The Baratie was so broken that it looked as if it would collapse down on its beams at any moment. "This is what you cost your amazing elder brothers, Luffy! Now _we_ have to pay for all of this shit, Luffy!" Sabo scowled.

"But... we're billionaires, Sabo!" Luffy said bluntly. "Also, I didn't use any of my money that Grampy sent me!"

Sabo and Ace blinked at him for a moment. Their faces suddenly lit up in glee, sparkles twinkling around their heads. "You're a genius, little brother!" They grabbed him, gripped him in a large bear-hug, and rocked him back in forth in their arms. "That's why we _love_ you, Luffy-_kun_~!"

"I can't breathe, guys...!"

"We know that~!"

"Hey!" Sabo and Ace looked down at Zeff standing a few inches beneath them. "You know what you've done! You've got to pay for it, boys! Don't expect for me to just let you off the hook for wrecking my restaurant!"

Ace and Sabo let go of their little brother, making him collapse flat on the grass. "Oh, yes, sir!" Sabo nodded. He reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. "How much will it be? Two thousand? Five million?"

"No!" Zeff hit Sabo on the head with his extremely tall chef's hat. "You have to pay for all of that food that you bought, you imbeciles!"

The two young men blinked. "What about your restaurant, though? How much money do you want so that you can fix it?" Ace asked the old man.

"Don't be a fool! We're a highly popular restaurant! We have the money to repair it," Zeff said.

Ace and Sabo gasped in glee. "Oh, boy! Really? So we don't have to pay for it? Look, we're truly sorry for all our brother cost you! He is, too, I'm sure-"

"Don't think that you can get off the hook so easily," Zeff growled. He looked over at Luffy. "You two didn't do anything, that brat did! However, I doubt he's old enough to pay for all of the damages he caused here. He'll have to stay and fix this place by hand until it's just as beautiful as it was before!"

Sabo and Ace looked at Zeff in shock for a little bit, before suddenly bursting out in a hearty fit of laughter. "Oh my god! Luffy, you're such an idiot! That's amazing! We don't have to do anything! You're amazing, Luffy!" Luffy bit his lip as to stop himself from bursting out into tears at his punishment.

He sat up on his elbows and stared up at Zeff in worry. "Oh, please, old man! Can't you make me pay for this! I don't want-"

His brothers whipped their heads around and looked at him fiercely. "You shut it, Luffy!" Sabo snapped.

"This is just too good to let go!" Ace giggled.

"But-"

"No buts, little brother!" Sabo said quickly, "This is a punishment to tell you not to ruin buildings for no reason! This is your consequence! You must pay for what you did, little brother! These are life lessons that you are learning!"

Luffy reluctantly stood up with a pouting face. Sometimes, he really hated his brothers... Zeff smiled at the young teenager, "You all right, boy?"

He blinked at the old man. He nodded, "Uh... I am."

Ace and Sabo gasped at him. "Oh my god, Luffy! Look at you! You're wrecked! What the hell is wrong with you? Can't we just go out for a normal, peaceful breakfast out without you seriously injuring yourself? Luffy, we're worried about you!"

Ace grabbed his arm as Sabo led the way back to the car. "C'mon, baby bro," Ace ordered, "We've got to get home and fix you up!"

After Sabo paid for the food they had bought (but did not eat), they got in the car and began to drive back to their house. Luffy looked down at his hand in the back of the car as Ace and Sabo discussed what they would do for breakfast. "Hey, Sabo? If we didn't eat breakfast there, what are we going to eat?"

"Leftovers, I guess," he told him.

"Leftovers? We have leftovers? Don't we eat every single speck of food that we make?" Ace scoffed, "What kind of leftovers are referring to!"

"Don't you remember? Our flambe?" Sabo said.

"What! There's no way that I'm eating that! That stuff's got to be spoiled by now! What was that from; Chapter 7?"

As his elder brothers continued to argue over the food, thoughts rushed through Luffy's mind. _"Is that the famed Vegapunk's work? Now how did you get into contact with that?" "Vegapunk did nothing to me." "Hmm? Well, there was something that Vegapunk created that altered a human's blood, isn't there?" "Vegapunk didn't create anything!" _The words that he and Don Krieg had said to each other just a while ago echoed in Luffy's mind.

He was seven years old when it happened. 'Vegapunk_ Creates Extraordinary Power That Evolves Mankind's Natural Abilities!' _ Luffy could remember as clear as day that newspaper article. Everyone was wild about it. He was seven years old when it happened. _'Vegapunk's Power_ _Stolen!'_ Terror was over everyone. The things that the person that had stolen his power could do were unthinkable. The world wanted it back. It was already too late by the time they got it back. Luffy had met that thief. He had been saved, thankfully, but he was not saved by the World Government. Instead, by a nice man that had become his friend after coming to stay a while in his summer home at Luffy's old village: Shanks.

However, by the time that Shanks saved Luffy from the kidnapper, he found him with the power in his blood. When Shanks tried to ask the government for help, for any way to get the power out of the child, they ignored him. He had had this power for 12 years.

It was all because of Vegapunk's power! He did this to him. _"Vegapunk did nothing to me." "Hmm? Well, there was something that Vegapunk created that altered a human's blood, isn't there?" _Created... Created? _"Vegapunk didn't create anything!"_

"Vegapunk..." Luffy whispered to himself, clenching his fist together. Ever since the accident, Luffy was unable to live a normal life. Being made of rubber wasn't an easy thing to hide. If he didn't hide it, he would be feared for the rest of his life. If anyone dear to him discovered that he was made of rubber, he was frightened that they would run away. That was the last thing he wanted. Sabo and Ace helped him to conceal it all these years. They were so helpful. They helped him keep his friends, however... Luffy had never been good at keeping secrets. None of his friends ever lasted long. They would always run away the moment they heard about it. He could never go to school for that reason. Now that he was grown up, he could conceal it better, so he decided to give it another try. Another try at friends...

_"Vegapunk didn't create anything!"_

"Vegapunk," Luffy hissed, "_destroyed_ me."

* * *

***gasp* Finally...! I'm done! **

**Now I can get on with the next part! It's gonna be fun! :3 Nami's next, guys~! I had been thinking that... maybe I should add LuNa, BUT! I wouldn't it make it very big in here. There are just slight hints. Because I had been thinking that... so, Luffy's a senior in here, which means that there's going to be a...prom. So, I had been thinking: what's up with Luffy! What's he gonna do? Also, Nami's a teenage girl. Teenage girls just naturally start falling in love with guys that are nice (...or hot... but... I don't want to write about Nami like that). So, please tell me if you're all right with that. I do NOT want to go in depth, just to tell you. Tell me if you're OK with hints of it because, after all, this IS high school fanfiction. Love happens in high school!**

**Hey, guys~! I have a buddy named Valeria Aurelia. She's on here, she's got her own fanfiction account! She's super awesome, you guys'd love her! :) So, we're getting ready to do a collab together! It's based off of the thought: "What if the Monkey D's lived together? AU-style!" So, it's a modern-day fanfiction where Dragon is a super powerful business man that owns a company that helps people that are struggling in life. One day, he decides that he's upset that he hasn't seen his son for sixteen years (Luffy's 17 in here) and he wants to live with his son for a little while and be that dad that Luffy's never had. Luffy has lived with his adoptive brother Ace and Sabo as well as his abusive grandpa Garp (who works in the Navy). How will he respond to having his super powerful, well-known dad come back to live with him? I hope you'll guys'll read it! Tell me if you do, and when it's out, I'll tell you what the name of it is so that you can read it. :) I'm super excited for it; it's gonna be amazing! :D**

**So, that's all for now. See yah next chapter! :D **


	16. He Is My Friend!

**Wazzup, everybody! XD**

**I can NOT wait for this! This is going to be AMAZING! I hope. But, it's gonna! It's going to be filled with friendship, amazingness, and-most of all-love~! Nah, I'm kidding! XD I'm not gonna do love. It's going to be a tragedy of perilous adventures through the deep unknown to rescue...one...true...friend. -.- Hehe. No, not really. I can't tell you what it's going to be about. Not YET, at least! :D  
**

**In case none of you read my last Author's Note, I thought that it would be helpful to remind all of you that Luffy's a senior in here. He's 17, though. I was also going to change it that Luffy didn't want to be King of the Fighters, he wanted to be King of the Adventurers! You've gotta remember that, OK? LUFFY WANTS TO BE KING OF THE _ADVENTURERS_. :) That's all!  
**

**I won't make this chapter as long as the last one, don't worry! :) Did you guys like it that long? Or would you have rather it have been shorter? If you liked it like that, I can make it longer. Although, some chapters WILL be longer than others no matter what. After all, the whole point of the length of certain chapters is just to fit that one scene in. If that one scene/topic is over, the chapter will be over as well (I'm tellin' y'all that in case some of you guys aren't writing books. I'm just letting you know). So, for the last chapter, it was longer than the rest because one: I wanted to finish it quickly, and two: I found it odd splitting it up more from what I was thinking about in my head? Don't you guys think? Anyways! Let me know if you liked how long it was! :)**

**Let's get started, y'all~! Enter...Nami!**

* * *

"In this world, there are three..." Professor Clover pointed to things on the world map. Zoro blinked sleepily. God, how he wanted him to shut up, or at least have the bell ring. He was so tired... He stayed up all last night worrying about whether or not he locked the front and back doors but was too lazy to get out of bed (he didn't...that damned raccoon somehow managed to open the door again and steal all of his food).

Zoro felt himself yawn, but didn't try to hide it. What did he care if someone saw him being tired? It was already obvious. Probably everyone in the entire class was bored. He looked over behind him to see the black-haired girl who continually raised her hand, each time higher than the last. Well, she wasn't... she was never bored in History class. No, not just in History class, but also in every class as well. Her name was Tashigi, and she was a first-class nerd to Zoro. She was just like that History-weirdo librarian, Nico Robin.

He rolled his eyes and looked back ahead. Squeezing his eyes shut, he stretched out as far as he could. He felt his left arm tap on Luffy's head. Zoro opened his eyes and muttered, "Sorry 'bout that, man..." Luffy was the greatest friend he had ever had, but, of course, he wasn't going to say that out loud. Whenever someone would say: 'Hey, Zoro? Are you friends with Luffy?' He would reply: 'Meh... Kinda...' But, whenever someone would say: 'Hey! Zoro! Are you friends with that weirdo Luffy?' He would immediately growl: 'Yeah! You gotta problem with that!' Luffy was his best friend, and he wasn't going to let anyone call him a bad name, no matter how embarrassed he was about having a friend.

Luffy and Zoro sat next to each other in every single class that they were in together, and in every class that Luffy and Zoro weren't in together, Usopp sat beside Luffy. Zoro blinked at Luffy. He was crouched over his notebook, his nose almost touching the paper. He was biting his bottom lip and kicking his legs under the table like a little kid. He clenched his pencil with his entire fist as if it were a stick or a straw. On the notebook, he was scribbling some sort of creepy monster down onto the paper.

Zoro leaned toward Luffy and whispered, "Luffy! What the hell are you drawing!"

Luffy blinked and looked up at him. "It's a pirate's jolly roger, Zoro!"

Zoro frowned and looked back at the mess he had drawn. "_That's_ a jolly roger? Dude! No, it's not!" Zoro grabbed his pencil and said as he reached the tip towards the black scribbles, "Then what is that-"

The black-haired teenager pushed Zoro's arm roughly away from his drawing, "Dude! Get lost, man! If you draw on it, you'd only be ruining it with your humidity!"

"_Humidity_? Are you trying to say _stupidity_?" Zoro snapped. "Humidity is how much water vapor is in the air, you idiot! Also, I was going to point to it, not draw on it, you imbecile!"

Luffy burst out laughing. "How do you even know about humidity, Zoro, when you're so stupid! Also, you just called yourself stupid!"

Zoro blushed in anger. "No, I didn't!"

"Yeah, you did!" Luffy laughed, "You knew that I was calling you stupid! You're so stupid, Zoro, that you know it! Wait a second... How does that make you more stupid? Oh, it's because it's you, Zoro. That's right."

"What! You're making no sense, Luffy!"

"Ahem!" The two suddenly stopped arguing. They finally realized how loud that they were fighting. When they looked up, they saw Professor Clover tapping his foot above them. "Have you two heard _anything_ I just taught you?"

Zoro and Luffy blinked. "I was listening!" Zoro suddenly spoke up, hoping not to get in trouble.

"Oh, yes? Then what were we talking about, Mr. Roronoa?" Professor Clover interrogated.

Zoro gulped and frantically looked back at the board. He saw the map and suddenly remembered being taught the same thing last year. He had also remembered Professor Clover telling the class before it began that it would be review from last year. He looked up at the teacher and said, "The different worlds on our planet!"

Professor Clover smiled. "I see! So you were listening!" He turned to Luffy. "How about you, Mr. Monkey? Were you listening as well?"

Luffy blinked. He turned to Zoro for an answer. He had never lied before! Zoro nodded frantically mouthing 'yes'. Luffy turned back to Professor Clover and nodded, "Y-yes! I-I was listening, P-Professor Clover...?"

"Were you? Because that sounded like a question..."

"Yes! I was listening!" Luffy repeated prouder.

"All right, then true or false: there are islands underwater?" the teacher asked him.

Luffy blinked. Islands underwater...? What in the world...? Who ever heard of islands underwater? What would that be helpful for? Humans can't breathe under the sea. Were they fancy mansions for endangered fish? Luffy looked around, feeling all eyes on him, making his back grow hot. He gulped when he saw that everyone _were_ indeed watching, waiting, and judging him. He was about to turn to Zoro for an answer, but the answer just seemed too obvious to search for help. "False," he could say that proudly, because, to him, it wasn't a lie.

Suddenly, the entire room burst out laughing. He gasped quietly and turned around to see the class laughing and pointing at him. He was...wrong? He had never felt such an awful, terrible feeling: embarrassment. If he was reincarnated...he wanted to become a clam... Luffy looked back up at the teacher, sweat beading down the sides of his face. "I...! I...uh...um..." he stuttered. He wanted to say something, but couldn't find the right words.

Professor Clover frowned softly at him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Monkey," he said as he took the piece of paper that had Luffy's jolly roger on it out from under his hands, which no longer had the strength to hold onto it tight enough to keep it, "but that is incorrect. See me after class, Mr. Monkey."

"Wha-what do you mean! How could anything live under the sea! Humans can't breathe!" Luffy protested as Professor Clover walked away.

Professor Clover smiled as he set Luffy's drawing down on his desk. "Are you interested now, Mr. Monkey?"

"Well... I..." Luffy stuttered as the laughter died down.

He walked back over to the board. "Who can explain the underwater islands to Mr. Monkey?" Professor Clover asked the class. A few hands went up, but the teacher said, "Yes! You, Nami."

Nami put down her hand and explained, "Underwater islands aren't the only islands that are not on sea level. There are also sky islands, too. While there are many sky and land islands, there is only one island underwater. That island is preserved for the fishmen, a race that is half fish, which means that they have gills, making it so that they can 'breathe' underwater. It's extremely dangerous to get down there, though, because of the sea serpents under the sea: the Sea Kings. It's said that there's only a 30% chance of reaching it safely."

"30%?!" Luffy screamed in glee.

Nami frowned at him in frustration that he interrupted her. "Yes. 30%. Now, don't interrupt." Luffy blinked, a bit taken aback by her attitude. "Anyways, how the fishmen survive down there without dying of frostbite because it would be extremely cold at the very bottom of the sea is that right above Fishman Island, the name of the underwater island, is an enormous tree called the Sunlight Tree Eve. It absorbs the sun's energy and heat and transfers it all the way down to its roots, where Fishman Island sits in between. Because it's so heated down there, it becomes a safe place for the fishmen to live."

Professor Clover smiled at her. "Excellent work, Nami! That's right!" He turned to Luffy and asked, "Do you understand, Mr. Monkey?"

"Sooooo... it's a mystery island?" Luffy giggled.

Nami and Professor Clover, as well as the rest of the class except for Zoro, sweat-dropped. "W-well... Not exactly," Professor Clover said, "But... yeah, sure... Whatever floats your boat, kid." Suddenly, the bell rang loud above them. Everyone immediately rose to their feet, closed their notebooks, and began putting their books back into their backpacks as Professor Clover said, "Now, class! Remember to read pages 234 to 256 tonight. I want you all coming back here ready to answer a few questions for the pop quiz tomorr-I mean... Just know all the stuff you've gotta know!" He turned to Luffy and said to him before he left, "Mr. Monkey, you know what you did. You can't just leave, you know."

Luffy pouted and started walking over to him. Zoro watched him walk to Professor Clover and said, "I'll just wait for you outside, okay, Luffy?"

Zoro stepped out the door and stood outside the door. Nami walked out a minute later. She saw him and stopped. "Your friend back in there," she taunted, "he's kind of stupid, don't yah think?"

The green-haired teenager gritted his teeth together. "What was that, bitch!" Zoro snapped.

Nami sighed and threw her head to the side. "Oh, calm down! I'm just saying! That was basic knowledge back there! Even _you_ knew that!" she told him, "You must have been disappointed in him back there, too, huh?"

Zoro turned away.

"Seriously, you aren't the type of person to join up with such weirdos, Zoro! What's gotten into you? For the years that I have known you, you have hated kids like him, calling them 'annoying' and stuff," Nami said, "I'm not your friend, I never have been, nor do I ever plan on being. But... I know you enough to say-"

Zoro stepped forward with bared, gritted teeth. He hissed, "You don't know _anything_, black-and-white witch!"

"W-what? Black-and-white witch? What does that mean?" she scoffed.

"It means," Zoro growled, "you only see things one way or another! You know the phrase, of course. You're just so scarred from your traumatizing past that you can't see the joy other people give each other! Luffy is... Luffy is my _friend_! I don't like to say it, but that's what he is! My friend! The reason why, witch, you'd never understand. But, it's something called 'kindness'. You should give it a try sometime."

Luffy slammed open the History door and practically skipped out of the classroom (just because that's how his personality is). He smiled at Zoro and said in excitement, "You ready, Zoro?"

Zoro smiled at his friend. "Yeah."

"Let's go to lunch! Oh boy~! I can't wait! I packed this amazing lunch, Zoro! I mean, I always do, though... But this one's amazing! And you can't have any, ever! Because it's too amazing for you, Zoro? Where are Usopp and Sanji? Does Sanji eat with us? I'm pretty sure I invited him," Luffy babbled.

"No, thankfully. That curly bastard said that he would only come to eat with us if we had a girl in our group," Zoro told him.

"Oh. How weird..." Luffy blinked and turned around to see Nami. "Oh, hey! Nami! You were really smart back there, Nami!"

She raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Uh... Thanks," she said.

He stepped closer to her and grinned, "Hey! You're a nice person! Do you want to eat with us at our table?"

She shook her head. "No thanks... I have... friends of my own that I..." She looked away. "I have friends of my own that I eat with..."

Luffy blinked. "Oh! You have your own friends? I'm sorry, then!" He stepped back beside Zoro and told her, "Well, if you ever want to eat with us, there's always plenty of room at our table!" He turned to Zoro and said, "C'mon, Zoro! Let's go find Usopp!" He nodded, and, with that, the two walked down the hallway together.

Nami watched them disappear into the crowd. She let out a deep sigh and turned away. She bit her lip and gripped onto her books tighter. _"Luffy's my friend! I don't like to say it, but that's what he is! My friend! The reason why, witch, you'd never understand. But, it's something called 'kindness'. You should give it a try sometime."_ She turned around and opened her mouth as if to call something out, but when she looked down the hallway, she saw the two boys had gone, as did everyone else in the hallway.

The orange-haired girl stopped. She looked around and bit her lip harder. No one was there...no one. They had all disappeared with their friends. Their friends. It reminded her how utterly and completely alone she was. _"I have friends of my own that I eat with..."_ She sighed and looked up, asking herself, "And who would that be, Nami?"

* * *

**I love this song more than anything in the entire world... O_O (OK, maybe not ANYTHING! I just like it. :3) It's "White Blank Page" by Mumford &amp; Sons.**

**Wow! I have so much time now that I have taken a break from _Reclaiming Life_! Look at me, I already finished this chapter! I'm so shocked! How did I do that! :D This is amazing! What if I can write the next one super fast, too?! That'd be awesome. :)**

**How'd y'all like that? Poor Nami! :,( She got nobody! It's okay! We all know how the Arlong arc ends! *pauses* You've all finished the Arlong arc, right? I hope you have, because I've given out a TON of spoilers already. (Sabo being alive and what he looks like, Bartomeleo being Luffy's #1 fan, and... Cavendish... and... etc.!)**

**Do you guys like what I'm doing what I'm doing with Luffy's character (and others, of course)? I'm putting out their amazing quotes! I wanted to do that to make them seem more like themselves. :3 Also just to respect our dear Oda-_sensei_!**

**Can you use the word 'bitch' in T-rated fanfictions?! Guys, I'm FREAKING OUT! O_O If not, I'm using it in the girl-dog sense! Haha! Thank goodness that it's not meant to be a curse word! :D I have an excuse! (Isn't that weird? Why is bitch, the word meaning a female dog, a curse word now? Same goes for bastard, a fatherless son! I mean, wazzup with that! I'm just wondering.)**

**Anyways! I'm so amazing I finished this so quickly (~so proud of myself~)! I didn't know I could do that! :D So, I'm gonna get started on the next chapter! Have an amazing day, everyone! I love all of you! :D Your comments and reviews are always so inspiring! ****Bye~!**


	17. You Don't Know Anything About Me

**Hello again, everyone! :)**

**I'm so excited for Sabo to be animated! It's going to be amazing! :D We'll finally have a voice to go off of! (Those anime people'd better not screw it up...) I'm also super sad that they didn't show Traffy's past! :( I mean, I can see why we didn't see his past, yet. I doubt that I would like to see it in the point of view of the villain... I'd want Traffy to think/tell it, not Doffy. Oh well... I'll be patient. **

**I don't really have anything more to say, so let's get started with this chapter! :)**

**(BTW, this takes place when Teach is still a 'good guy' in Whitebeard's crew.)**

* * *

Ace blinked. He and his two friends Marco and Thatch blinked out at the view in front of them. "What's this...?" they whispered all at once.

"They're houses," a large tan-skinned man with fuzzy, black hair named Teach replied impatiently.

Ace turned to him and frowned. "We can see that, Teach! But look around you! Don't you see something off about this place?"

Teach turned to look at the neighborhood. There were thousands of houses all in a line running down the road. It looked like a normal neighborhood to Teach. However, the people walking around were not humans. They were humans with scales, gills, and fins. "What? Are you talking about the fishmen, Ace?"

"Precisely, Teach!" Ace screamed, "Fishmen live in Fishman Island, not out on the open streets! No wonder Pops told us to look at this place..." The four sat in Ace's fancy car, Marco in the passenger's seat, Ace in the driver's seat, and Thatch and Teach sitting in the very back. Ace had abruptly stopped the car when they made it onto the road and had told them all to duck.

Ace worked for a very powerful, important man named Edward Newgate. He was, according to the law, a gang leader that disobeyed the law with his 'minions' by breaking public property, disturbing the peace, and loitering. True, they had done all those things, but they had never hurt anyone! The only reason that they did all of things was that Newgate was unhappy with the way the World Government dealt with crime in their city. While the World Government dealt with war, Newgate made sure that the city was not in turmoil. They took care of murders, thefts, and other crimes that the government had brushed off. The Whitebeard Gang, as the World Government and the rest of the city called them, was the entire reason why the city was still standing. No one dared mess with them.

"Hey!" The four jumped and turned around to look out the driver seat window, which was where the voice came from. There stood a young girl with short orange hair. She wore a deep frown and a local school uniform. "What the hell are you all doing?" she growled.

"Ah! It's a human!" Marco and Thatch called out, sitting up in their chairs.

"Hold up, dudes!" Ace yelled, sitting up as well, "This girl! She has my baby brother's school uniform on!" He turned to Nami and asked her, "Hey, girl! You know a funny kid named Luffy? _Monkey D._ Luffy?"

She raised an eyebrow and replied, "Yeah... He's in my History, Math, and Science classes. He's a real weirdo."

Ace rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled with a light blush on. "Haha~! You think so~? I mean, I _did_ raise him! Obviously, he takes on some traits from me, of course! Haha~!"

"I didn't compliment him..." Nami muttered with a sweat-drop.

Marco leaned forward and said, "Forget him, girl. He's always been an odd one. Now, do you think you can answer a few questions for us?" He and the other two pulled out their official unofficial Whitebeard Gang badges while Ace pulled out a poorly drawn one that had been written with crayon. "I suggest that you answer them, or else-Dude, Ace! What happened to your _badge_, man!"

"I..." Ace looked away, "I...accidentally burned it..."

"You moron!" the other three barked.

"What're the questions?" Nami interrupted them.

"Oh! Right, right!" Marco continued, "What's up with this neighborhood? Why are there fishmen here? Don't fishmen live on Fishman Island? I would think that they would be picked on a lot by humans. I mean, if _I_ was a fishman, I wouldn't want to be up here."

Nami looked away. "They live here."

"But, why?" Thatch asked.

She whipped her head back to them and growled, "That's none of your business!" The four of them watched as the orange-haired girl walked briskly away from their car to the sidewalk.

"Ah! Wait! We've got a few more questions for you!" Marco called out to her, sticking his head out the window and reaching out towards her.

She turned her head slightly and called out over her shoulder, "Well, I'm not going to answer them!"

Marco gritted his teeth and turned to Ace. "Ace! Step on it! We've got to catch up to her!"

Ace nodded and slammed his foot down on the gas. Nami gasped as she saw their car catching up to her. She began to run as fast as she could down the sidewalk. The car continued to drive on, getting closer and closer to her. Nami felt her heart pounding hard in her chest as she turned quickly onto someone's lawn. She ran down the alley in between the two houses. "Dammit...!" Ace muttered. He turned to the two in the back and ordered, "C'mon, guys! There's something up with this place! We've got to catch up with her!"

The four sprang out of the car and ran down the road after her. Nami looked over her shoulder to see them a few feet away. _'Damn, they're fast!'_ she cursed. Ace smirked. They were so close! They were going to get some answers: this was what his boss wanted! Suddenly, they collided against someone.

Ace rubbed his head and stepped back, as did the three others. "What the hell is your problem, you-" He stopped when he saw who they had run into. They blinked. It was a World Government official, Nezumi. "Ne-Ne-Ne-Nezumi?!" the group gasped.

"Now what in the world are you doing running so quickly down this road?" Nezumi asked them, his voice was squeaky, nasal and snobby-sounding. He stopped and screamed, "Wait a second! You four are from the infamous Whitebeard Gang!"

They all jumped in their skin and quickly turned around while Ace screamed out to them, "Forget the girl, guys! Just get back to the car!"

Nezumi turned to the soldiers behind him and ordered, "Catch those men! Don't let them get away! They're criminals!"

The four had successfully made it to their car, the soldiers right behind them. Ace briskly turned on the car and drove away as fast as they could, not caring that they were almost running into a few soldiers. They all took deep breaths, thanking the heavens that they had made it back to the car. "That place," Ace breathed, "was _definitely_ strange. There's always something off about a place where a World Government official is at in this area. Especially when the place is swarming with fishmen! Let's go back and tell Pops what we've seen."

* * *

Nami closed the door behind her. She sighed and set her backpack down on the table. Sitting down at a chair beside it, she put her head in her hands and let out a deep breath. There was something wrong with Luffy, his brothers, and their friends. All she wanted to do was get away from them. However, Zoro's words about Luffy being his best friend still hung in her mind. How could such a demon like Zoro have a _best friend_? Luffy was such a weirdo.

No matter how much she thought he was strange, there was something about him that she liked. He was so nice! Nami hated to admit it, but, in some ways, she could see how he could be a good friend. He was so nice to everyone he met! It didn't seem like he hated anybody! _"There's always plenty of room at our table!" _Maybe... Maybe she should try to see what it was like to eat with them? After all, she didn't have anybody to-

She stopped. A shiver ran down her spine. That was weird... What was she thinking? Was she really considering eating with that moron and his idiotic friends? There's no way anyone could make she be their friends! Never! Not even if you bribed her with money! Wait... Wait a second... Actually, maybe she would do it for money...

"Nami!" Nami jumped. She turned around to see her sister, a blue-haired woman with a tattoo across her arm and chest, standing in the doorway.

"Nojiko?" Nami blinked. She smiled and ran up to her. "I haven't seen you in so long! It's so nice to see you! How have you been?"

Nojiko smiled at her. "I've been great, Nami! You're looking great, sis! That beast hasn't been hurting you has he?"

Nami stopped. She looked away and pushed the tresses of hair that were hanging over her face behind her ear. "Um... No. He hasn't." She raised her eyes up to see her sister's concerned face. "But, you shouldn't worry, Nojiko! I'm completely fine! See? I'm smiling right now!"

"I can see past your poker faces, sis," Nojiko said seriously with a deep frown, "I hate seeing you like this, Nami. You're a strong, beautiful, young lady! This isn't how you should be treated so early in life, or at all! Someday, we'll free you from that prison he's put you in!"

Nami forced a smile. They stared at each other for a while until Nami finally whispered, "N-Nojiko... You know that that's impossible..."

"N..." Nojiko stopped, "No! Nothing's impossible, Nami, as long as...as long as you try."

Nami frowned and looked down again.

"N-Nami...?" Nojiko whispered so faintly it was barely audible, "A-Arlong wants to see you..._now_."

* * *

**_Bee-oooo! Bee-oooo!_ Here that siren, boys and girls? That's the Bad-Guy Alert! **

**I'm having a lot of fun with this part! :) Since I have so much free time on my hands, I'm taking it all in while I still can! :) It probably won't be like this when I'm writing that collab with Valeria Aurelia. **

**Did you like Ace? Now you guys finally know what he does for a living! That Ace...! :3 I read the chapter where he's first introduced. He's so friggin' awesome! :D (SPOILERS: Why'd he have to die?! [*sigh* I actually know why...] If you read the chapter where he dies while listening to _Imagine_ by John Lennon, you'll cry even harder! That's what I did... :,( So sad...! It matches up _too_ well...! O_O I listened to it because that was the first chapter in the volume and the Author's Note in there was a tribute to John Lennon because it was the anniversary of his death. It was too friggin' sad! I had to close the page because I was crying so hard...!) At least Sabo came back to bring him back to life, you know? :3 (But no matter how amazing Sabo is, he will never replace Ace by being the "new Ace"! Sabo is not Ace, and Ace is not Sabo. They are there own character, and they're perfect just like that. :3)**

**Anyways, I hope you all loved this chapter! :) See y'all next time! :D**


	18. How To Trick a Clueless Billionaire

**I'm back! You must have seen a lot of me this past week, huh? :)**

**My sister told me that it's impossible for Sabo to have an eyebrow where his scar is. I refuse to believe it! D: That would make Sabo..._ugly_! He can't be! Not with his magnificent mane! Sabo is _beautiful_! Even...though...he looks like...Coby... I will not accept this! (Burn scars are so frightening... Sabo-_kun_... Why...!)**

**Nami's past was so sad. Luffy's so nice to her. :) I want a friend like Luffy. :3 Her life was so awful; she always seemed to be crying inside, you know? But Luffy was the kind of friend that came along to dry her tears and give her a helping hand in standing up when she had fallen down so long ago. It must have been so wonderful to finally feel like she can laugh till she cries without fear. That's the only crying Nami does now. I love what Luffy has done for every single one of his friends. :) The things a boy that fell from the sky can do...! :)**

**Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Arlong. He was a shark fishman with the worst attitude in the entire world. He despises humans and claims himself and his fellow fishmen as 'perfect'. For the past twelve years, Arlong and his gang had been ruling over Cocoyashi Road, as well as the surrounding roads, as if it were an empire.

Nami had been controlled by them ever since she was eight years old. There was no way out. Not a single ray of hope shone down in Nami's old, dark, and lonely world. She was all alone and hopeless.

"Nami...!" the blue fishman called out from the shadows. He sat in a large chair at the back of the room, thousands of fishmen surrounding him and the borders of the room. "I'm happy to see that you returned. Were you out stealing cash from weak, pathetic humans?"

"What else would I be doing?" Nami replied gruffly, "I'm hoping to raise that money as soon as possible."

Arlong smirked. He ignored her comment. The fishman leaned forward. "I heard that there was a new boy at your school. They call him Monkey D. _Luffy_, yes?"

Nami blinked. "Yes. What of him?"

"He's apparently a very important little brat," Arlong said, sitting back in his chair once more, "He's the grandson of Vice-Admiral Garp of the Navy. From Nezumi, I heard that one of his brothers, Portgaz D. Ace, is the second division commander of Whitebeard's Gang. He's also the son of a very powerful man named Dragon." Nami's eyes widened, making Arlong laugh. "You've heard of him, haven't you?"

"D-Dragon?!" Nami gasped.

Arlong nodded. "This boy... He could be useful to us. He's apparently extremely strong as well. If we could have this boy in our forces, then it could prove worthy. However..." Arlong turned to a few small pearls that he was moving in between his fingers. "...I don't know if the boy is up for the task. I want to know what sort of human he is. I want someone smart...like you, Nami!"

Nami frowned.

"That's why I'm sending _you_ to spy on him," Arlong ordered.

The orange-haired teenager coughed, choking on the own air she was breathing. It had become too dry in this place after that comment. "Excuse me!" she coughed.

"You heard me!" Arlong snarled, "He wants you to be his friend, am I right? This is good! Trick him! Make him think that you want to take his offer to be friends. When you think that you've collected enough information...or...when _I_ think you've collected enough information, I'll have you come back to me. If he's the sort of person I want, I'll take him...just like I did with you, Nami." Nami felt her heart stop. Luffy was so kind! Such an innocent person like him shouldn't have to go through what she did when she was younger. No one should...

"But, you can't-" Nami protested.

"_What can't I do, Nami!_" Arlong roared, rising to his feet, his sharp teeth shining brightly in the sunlight that was beaming through the curtains.

Nami felt herself grow very small. "N-nothing, sir..." she whispered as she looked away.

Arlong stared at her for a little while before raising one side of his mouth in a smirk. "Oh! And I forgot to mention one very important detail." Nami looked up at him slowly. "That boy, he may not look like it, but because of his heritage, he and he brothers have just recently become billionaires. However, since they just received that money, they most likely do not take care of it responsibly." There was a long pause. Arlong's face suddenly lit up so maliciously, it looked like he was about to explode with evil intent. "Take whatever your heart desires!"

Nami stopped. _'A... billionaire...?_ _I need one million berries to be free from this awful man! If I get some money out of that idiot, it'll make my job so much easier!'_ The orange-haired girl smiled. "I'll do it!"

**The Next Day...**

Luffy yawned as he walked out of his house. He had read a really boring article in the newspaper about an extremely old painting had been stolen from the National Blue Museum last week. That museum was really close to his house, he thought to himself. It actually could be someone on his street, really! As Luffy was looking around, he looked to his left to see two clowns holding an extremely old, detailed painting of a young woman in a dark green background. The two clowns were delicately taking it from a large van that was parked in his neighbor's driveway that was painted so that it could easily be mistaken for an ice cream truck. Luffy pointed at the painting and said, "Hey, isn't that the-" The two clowns suddenly screamed and ran into his neighbor's house as fast as they could.

The black-haired teenager blinked. That was the queerest thing that he had ever seen in a very long time. Luffy looked at his driveway and was thinking to himself, _'Should I go in Sabo's smart car? Or in Ace's awesome superhero-like racecar? Hmm...'_ Luffy suddenly burst out laughing. It was so obvious. Luffy looked up as Zoro was coming out of his house.

Zoro sighed and screamed out, "Ugh! I have to _walk_ to school again!"

"No, you don't, Zoro!" Luffy called out to his neighbor. Zoro turned to look at him. "Because I've got a car right here!" Luffy announced as he patted Ace's car. Zoro burst out laughing in excitement.

When Zoro's back was turned as he was getting in Ace's car, Luffy's arm stretched out into the open kitchen window and grabbed Ace's keys from the counter just as Ace was about to get them. Ace's eyes burst wide open. He was no longer in dysania (For those of you that don't know: Dysania: the state of not being able to get out of bed in the morning).

"_Damn you, Luffy!_" Ace screamed from his house as Luffy drove away with Zoro in the passenger's seat; however, the two could not hear the calls from the black-haired teenager's brother through the song _Classic_ by MKTO blaring on full volume*.

They parked the car in the school parking lot and got out of the car as all the younger kids stared at them in awe because they knew how to drive (no, not because of their car). Luffy jumped beside Zoro and laughed, "Look at all of them, Zoro! They're staring at the cool kids."

"You bet they are, Luffy!" Zoro snickered.

"They are? They're staring at us!" Kidd blinked at Law, who were both coincidentally walking behind Luffy and Zoro. "Law! How could they be staring at cool kids if _you're_ here? You're not a cool kid!"

"I was wondering the same exact thing about you," Law muttered.

"You see, Law, this is why I hate you. You're always like that! God! I hang out with you just to make you angry, which is why I'm going to say this: I mean, what kind of person tattoos DEATH on their fingers?" Law rolled his eyes at Kidd's comment, thinking to himself, _'Everybody's a critic...'_

Luffy and Zoro walked down the hallway. "Did you do your Math homework, Zoro?" Luffy asked Zoro as they were getting into their lockers.

Zoro stopped turning the dial on his lock.

Luffy burst out laughing. "You're so stupid, Zoro! You didn't do it, did you? That's priceless! Look at your _face_!"

The green-haired teenager looked around. "W-well, I was sort of hoping that you would be a nice friend and... help me out with... a problem... that... I didn't know...?"

He turned to Luffy to see him staring at him. After a minute, Luffy finally couldn't keep it in anymore and burst into an enormous fit of laughter. "You lost your homework, didn't you, Zoro! That's so stuuuuupid!"

Zoro blushed in embarrassment. "Q-quiet down, you idiot! Please, Luffy, can I just copy yours? I don't want to get in trouble with San!"

Luffy stopped laughing with a deep breath and a sigh. "I'm really sorry, Zoro, but... I didn't do my homework, either!"

Zoro was on the verge of smacking Luffy straight on the head. "Luffy, why were you laughing at me when you did the same exact thing that I did? That doesn't really make any sense, you know?"

"No, it makes perfect sense!" The two turned to see Sanji opening up his locker and turning to look at them. "Because you're Zoro." Zoro was so ready to kill that blonde-haired bastard. "I did _my_ homework," Sanji bragged.

Luffy smiled. "Ooh~! You did, Sanji? You think that we can copy it so that San doesn't give us more homework?"

Sanji chuckled lightly. "Oh, Luffy! You're so naive! Don't you know that that's wrong? You shouldn't cheat your way through life, you know?"

Luffy blinked. "Really? Copying homework is wrong? I've seen Zoro and a lot of other kids doing it, so I thought that it was okay!"

"No, Luffy," Sanji said with a shake of his head, "You shouldn't copy off of people's homework-" Sanji stopped when he heard Hancock and Alvida complaining about how they had also forgotten to do their homework. "-unless they're a beautiful lady~!" Sanji danced over to them and told them coolly, "You can copy off of mine, ladies~!"

The black-haired teenager smiled at Sanji. "Good ol' Sanji! He's always so helpful to people in need!" Luffy turned to Zoro and frowned. "Why aren't you more like that, Zoro?"

Zoro scowled at him. "What about you?"

"Hey!" Luffy and Zoro turned to look at Nami, who was standing with her Math homework in her hands. "You guys were wanting to copy off of someone's math homework, right?" She gulped and looked around. She, truthfully, didn't want to do this. Nami was a good student, and she had never had anyone copy off of her homework.

Luffy gasped. "Are you...!"

She walked up to them and handed them her homework. "Quickly! Finish it before class starts," she insisted.

The black-haired teenager was about to grab it when Zoro stopped his hand. He narrowed his eyes at Nami. "What are you playing at, witch? You were just making fun of us yesterday, weren't you? What's gotten into you?"

Nami blinked. "I actually... don't have any friends. So, I decided that I should hang out with you two. Just to... not be lonely for a little while."

Luffy smiled and grabbed Nami's homework. "Of course! Nobody should be alone, you know?" Luffy put out his hand for a handshake. "It's wonderful to have you, Nami!"

Nami looked at his hand and merely high-fived it. "Yeah," she nodded. With that, the three walked away together down the hallway. In Nami's mind, she repeated the awful things that had happened to her in her mind. She was doing an awful thing. A very awful thing... She closed her eyes and chanted in her head, _'__It's all for you... All for you, Bellemere. If I can get this money, you will be avenged. This is for you, Bellemere.'_

* * *

**How'd y'all like that?**

***: The song in there, I just chose it because it was the first song that came on when I turned on the radio.**

**I finally got my new laptop! It's amazing! (I'm typing on it right now! :3) So, you know what that means, everyone? My friend Valeria and I's book is almost here! I'm probably going to start writing the first chapter tomorrow! :) I can't wait! Y'all are gonna love it! :)**

**So, anyways... I hope you liked the chapter and... see you next time, everyone! Bye! :)**


	19. Trust Me

**Hey, everyone! I'm so happy to be back and writing this! :D**

**I have to leave tomorrow for Boston... God, I'm gonna be so tired when I wake up two days from now... Stupid plane rides at 12 at night... :( When you're reading this, I will most definitely have already been to the East Coast. That's why there was a delay.**

**I'm so sorry guys about the delay on _Reclaiming Life_! I assure all of you, I am so slowly and most definitely writing it now. It's going to come out, but... probably not soon. After like, two _Serendipity_ chapters I'm going to finish it and not write the next chapter because, if I don't, that chapter I'm writing will go away! O_O So, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, and I will publish it as soon as I can!**

**By the way, to all of my fellow Sabo fangirls that put comments about how they're a Sabo fangirl as well but I can't reply back because... I don't know why maybe because you don't allow PMs, but let's squeal together, man! (Good God, my sister is gonna read this and be all like, "SO I READ YOUR AUTHORS NOTE! YOU'RE A SABO FANGIRL, HUH?!" Oh God... She's gonna read that too and be like "WHY WAS THE SENTENCE WHERE YOU PUT ME TALKING IN CAPS LOCK?!" There's nowhere to hide! O_O Run!)**

**OK... There was just a loud train noise outside my house... I DON'T LIVE ANYWHERE CLOSE TO A TRAIN! D:**

**My computer is really freaking me out guys! O_O Yesterday, I rolled my mouse over the icon at the bottom that shows how much battery life is remaining and it said: "123 hr 57 min (38%) remaining" And I was like: "WHAT THE HELL!" There's 123 hours remaining on my computer when it's at 38%?! I got this thing, like, 5 days ago! If that's true, there's no way that it could have been so low already if there's that many hours remaining! But, never mind! That's not my point! There's no way that there could be 123 hours of battery life (and more) on a laptop! It's just impossible! Also, I looked about three minutes ago at how many hours there were left on my battery and it said "3 hr 47 min (something%) remaining"... (I didn't look at the percent) But then I looked just now and it said "6 hr 23 min (53%) remaining". MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND! A BATTERY'S LIFE CANNOT GO UP UNLESS ITS PLUGGED IN! WHICH IT'S NOT BECAUSE I'M LOOKIN AT IT RIGHT NOW! **

**Oh! By the way, my collab fanfiction with Valeria Aurelia is out! It's called _Cohabitation_ if you want to check it out! It's really funny! :) We only have the first chapter so far, Valeria is making the second chapter right now. But... it might take her a while because she's super hooked on a fanfiction called _Imagined Life_. But, yeah! Our book is our, so I hope you guys'll read it and check it out! :) Tell us what you think! (Valeria Aurelia has it on her page, it's pretty easy to find right now. It's the most recent one. :D Maybe that'll help if you're having trouble finding it right away?)**

**THIS CHAPTER, AND PROBABLY NONE OF THE CHAPTERS AFTER THIS, WILL HAVE LUNA IN IT! Just in case you think anything in here will lead to romance: IT WON'T. OK? :) **

**That was all I've got to say. :) Enjoy the chapter, guys~! **

* * *

Usopp didn't know what he thought of all of this... For the entire time that Usopp had known Nami, she had been a complete and utter loner. Just as much, or even more than Zoro, and that was saying something!

"L-Luffy..." Usopp whispered to him as he stared at her from where she stood beside Luffy. The three of them were walking down the long, crowded hallway to Math class together. "I don't trust her..."

Luffy blinked. "What? Why not, Usopp? She seems fine to me!" Luffy exclaimed with a cheerful grin.

"L-Luffy! You shouldn't be so trustworthy! Not everyone is friendly, bud!" Usopp hissed, "Now, I know that I underestimated Zoro, but I _know_ that this girl is bad news, Luffy! You should just stop."

The long-nosed teenager's friend rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, Usopp! I know what I'm doing! Name _one_ person that I trust or trusted that are bad people!"

Usopp looked at him impatiently. He lifted up each finger as he listed off the names, "Law, Kidd, Hancock, Alvida, that creepy librarian that likes history way too much, pretty much every creepy-looking homeless person that has approached us for money when we're walking through the city-"

"I get it! I said list _one_!" Luffy yelled, giving up slightly. He turned to look at Nami and whispered, "I'm sure she's all right, Usopp."

Usopp rolled his eyes. "Just keep telling yourself that...!" Finally, they got to Luffy's locker. "All right, Luffy, I'm going to go to my locker, too. See yah at Math class!" he said.

Luffy nodded and waved to him as he left. Luffy began to unlock his lock when he suddenly turned around to Nami, whom stood beside him in front of Sanji's locker. "Aren't you going to go to your locker, too, Nami?"

Nami blinked. "Huh? Me? Oh, no! I already have all of my stuff! I get all of the stuff that I would need for every class I'll be going to before lunch at the beginning of the day and after lunch I get the rest of the stuff I'd need for the other classes. We don't need that many things for class, you know! It's so much easier to bring less things, after all. You don't have to go to your locker too many times. It's less the hassle!"

Luffy's eyes widened. "That's amazing! Oh, wow! You're a genius, Nami!" He opened up his locker and looked into it. "What will I need for the rest of the day so that I don't have to go back to my locker, Nami?"

"Well, you won't need this, or this, or that! Oh, no! Why do you have _that_? Have we ever used _this_ this year? I don't think so!" Nami said, throwing things out of his hands and out of his locker and into the trash can behind them.

Luffy looked down at the small stack of notebooks and one binder in his arms. "Is this really all I need, Nami?"

"Of course!" Nami smiled, telling no lies.

He grinned a bright, giddy grin as he looked a few inches down at her. "You're really a nice person, Nami!"

Nami felt a heartfelt smile spread across her face. It really did feel nice to talk to someone like this. It had been a long time since she had smiled from the very bottom of her heart. "Oh, it's nothing," she told him, looking away and pushing her bangs behind her ear, feeling embarrassed by compliments.

"Nothing? This is so helpful! That's it, Nami! You're an awesome person," Luffy said to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as he pushed her through the crowd of kids in the hallway with him, "You're going to be one of my _greatest_ friends~! Shishishishishi!"

"W-what...?"

Hancock and Alvida watched as the young teenager giggled with the girl next to him. "What the hell!" Alvida scowled, "He even got _Nami_ on his side! But he's such a weirdo! And here I was thinking that Nami was a clever girl!"_  
_

Marguerite, who was standing beside Hancock, whispered quietly to them, "Well, you've gotta admit... He's kinda cute!"

A shadow suddenly passed over the two girls' faces as they frowned down on the younger girl. At the top of their lungs, the two yelled, "I'm disappointed in you, Marguerite!"

* * *

Sanji gasped. He stood behind the cafeteria counter helping out the club that he had founded back in 9th grade, the Cooking Club, serve the school lunch. In front of him stood the bouncy black-haired freak that was sort of cool, that creepy marimo bastard, and the long-nosed freaky geek standing beside the most gorgeous girl he had ever laid eyes on.

"L-Luffy?" Sanji whispered to him, "Who is that _goddess_?"

"That, Sanji, is Nami!" Luffy said to him bluntly. He held out the gray tray in his hands as the other two boys did as well and insisted, "Now, give us some meat! C'mon, man! I'm starving!"

Sanji sprang over the counter and grabbed onto Nami's hand and kissed it gently. "Oh, my dear! You are truly the most radiant ray of sunlight I have ever laid my eyes on!" He pulled his head back and put the back of his hand against his forehead, making an 'Alas!' pose. "Oh! It's painful! I am not worthy to look upon your beauty, Great Goddess! Your beauty truly exceeds any flower blossom or any beautiful drop of sunlight that I have ever-"

"We know!" Zoro growled, "Are you proposing or something? If not, get off the stage, Romeo!"

Luffy burst out laughing at his friend's comment. Sanji, however, was obviously not pleased. He rose to his feet, shoulders hunched, a large vein pulsing on his neck and forehead. He whipped his head over to him, making his blond hair fly with him. "You got somethin' you'd like to say to my face, marimo!"

Zoro bared his teeth at him and muttered, "I already did!"

"Oh, yeah? I must be hard of hearing or something. Say it again, shitty bastard, if you _dare_!"

"Just shut up!" Nami barked, pushing them away. She massaged the bridge of her nose as she muttered, "God...! You two are so annoying!"

Sanji sighed and swooned, "Oh, Nami-_swan_~! Your beauty _never_ dies~! Not even when you're yelling at me for my ignorance~!"

Nami looked over at Sanji in confusion and then looked back the others, who had already managed to get their food. Nami turned to counter and picked up a large bowl of fruit salad that sat in front of her. She turned back to the three teenagers that she had first been with and said, "Shall we go, boys?"

Luffy nodded. "C'mon, Nami! We'll show you where our table is! It's in the best place in the entire universe!"

Sanji gaped as he watched them walk away together. They had actually done it! When he was saying that the only way that he would join their weird group would be if they had a pretty girl, he seriously doubted that they would ever accomplish that. They were just too weird! They were too... ugly! Well, Sanji was _much_ more handsome than them, and all the girls at school knew it, too! Sanji blinked and looked around. He let his head and shoulders drop when he remembered that he didn't have a girlfriend...

Suddenly, a genius idea sent a shiver up his spine. Luffy had managed to get so many friends in only a few weeks at this crazy school. Luffy's name was already being heard about all throughout the senior grade. He really was becoming quite popular. If he joined up with them, maybe he could _finally_ get a girlfriend! That would be the greatest thing that would ever happen to him (that and marriage).

Leaping like a deer, he called out at the top of his lungs, two words that would change his life forever, "W-wait, Luffy!"

* * *

Luffy stood firm on the mat. He tilted his head side to side, making the bones in his neck send a crack throughout the room. Rubbing his hands together, he threw his arms down to his sides. He was ready. He was always ready. Martial Arts was his life. It was his passion. He was _going_ to win this tournament.

School had ended just two hours ago and he had asked Coach Silvers, or Rayleigh as he called him, if he could use the gym for training late after school. A huge martial arts tournament was coming up: New World High versus Seifu Academy. He had to win this one! It was to show how grateful he was to his school. If he had not gone here, then he surely would have lived another nineteen years without a single friend, save for his older brothers, of course.

He had known the name 'Seifu' and the 'Marines' ever since he was a small child. Garp, Luffy's abusive grandfather, had always trained him the hardest he could so that he could go to that high school and be soldier for the World Government one day. However, Garp's work with the Marines was too busy for him to ever enroll him when he turned fourteen years old. He actually hadn't seen his grandpa since two days after his thirteenth birthday.

Luffy remembered that his brothers were the only ones that ever stuck by his side for more than two or three years. Everyone else he knew left him alone at some point in his life. Be it the nice woman and mayor from his old village, Makino and Woop Slap, or Shanks, or even his own grandfather. However, Garp was his only true family by blood. Luffy had always adored his family, it was simply part of who he was. No matter how many times Garp would punch him or snap at him to be stronger, Luffy would love him just as much as any other child to their grandpa. Because... he knew that Garp loved him back, and that's the only reason why he would force him to never be the thing he wanted to be.

He was going to win this fight for his family. For his grandpa. To show him that even his childish, scrawny, little grandkid can do great things. That he was no longer the little boy he beat up in the woods, but the strong man that he could smile at and be _proud_ to call him his grandson.

Luffy took a deep breath and pulled back his hands. He felt his arms stretch out quickly behind him until he felt them bounce into place, telling him that he could stretch no further. "_Gumo Gumo no..._" Luffy announced to himself, staring straight out at the dummy in front of him. Flinging his arms back out in front of him at light speed toward the figure about ten feet away from him. "_BAZOOKA!_" he called out as the palms of his hands collided against the soft padding on the dummy's chest, sending it flying against the wall at the other end of the gym.

The black-haired teenager giggled a 'shishi' in satisfaction. He was _so_ gonna win this tournament! But the tricky thing was... how was he going to do this without accidentally stretching in front of the _entire_ school?

_Slam!_ Luffy felt his heart stop. It wasn't a loud noise; it was the noise of the door closing after being held open for a while. Someone had seen him stretch... He didn't want to turn around, scared to see who was watching him.

Luffy finally decided that he couldn't just stand there forever. He slowly turned around, with wide eyes, to look out at the person that stood behind him in front of the heavy gym door. "N-Nami...?" Luffy whispered. He felt his tan skin go pale. Was he going to lose _another_ friend because of this curse of his?

His heart started beating quickly in fear when he saw Nami turn around and dash out the door that she had just entered through just a few minutes before. He had to catch her or else she could tell someone else! Using the fast reflexes that Luffy had gained from trying to run away from dangerous predators in the jungle that his grandpa had thrown him in once, Luffy rushed out the door, chasing after her.

Before long, Luffy managed to grab onto Nami's arm and stop her mid-sprint. "Wait, Nami! I can explain!" he called out.

Nami whipped her head around to stare at Luffy. In Luffy's eyes, it looked as if she was glaring daggers straight into him. "Can you? Well, go ahead then! What did I just see? Because, I'm pretty sure that I saw you stretch your arms!"

Luffy tried to catch his breath, but found it quite difficult because he discovered that his nervousness was also causing his breathing to grow shorter and shorter. "Um..." He desperately didn't want to tell her that he was made of rubber. Then she would surely abandon him. However, he had never been good at lying. He also wasn't too fond of it, either. Luffy found that the easiest thing was just to persuade her. "If I told you, Nami... you would fear me. I've seen it happen thousands of times. Just... _please_, Nami! I'm begging you! I'll do anything! Just... I don't want to lose another one!"

Nami blinked. "Another one? Another what?"

"Another...friend..." Luffy whispered, "People fear what you just saw. I've known people that stop being my friend because they're afraid of that I'm..." Luffy looked away.

The look in Luffy's eyes hurt her feelings more than anything. He seemed just so... afraid. Nami could never take puppy-dog eyes. They hurt her feelings too much. It was probably because she could relate to fear, to feeling as if you were about to cry. "Luffy..." she whispered, suddenly feeling a new feeling of trust in the teenager, "What are you?"

"No! I can't tell you! You'll leave if I-"

"Luffy! You don't know me. You have no idea what makes me afraid or what makes me run away," Nami told him gently, "Only those that have hurt someone deserve to be left alone. You haven't hurt anyone, have you?"

"W-what? N-no! Of course not!" Luffy insisted.

Nami smiled at him warmly, "Then I'm never going to leave you, my friend. No matter what you are."

Luffy felt his heart that had been frozen in fear of Loneliness suddenly melt under his friend's words. A smile spread across his lips as he felt a giddy, happy feeling spread throughout him. "R-really...? You really mean that?" he giggled. Nami nodded. "Oh! Why... Shishishishi! You know, I really do like you, Nami! You are going to be my greatest friend for sure!"

Nami blinked, suddenly feeling a little discouraged. This was not friendship. She felt hurt when she remembered that all she was really doing was tricking the boy. It really was going to break his heart when he found that out, wouldn't it? A scowl spread across her inner face as she hissed in her mind, _'Let it hurt... I'm doing this all for my village! For Genzo... For Nojiko... And, most of all, for you, Bellemere...'_

"Well," Luffy said to her, "When I was seven years old, I was drugged with this whatchamacallit drug that morphed my blood cells! After that, I became a rubberman! It was Vegapunk's drug!" Luffy pulled at his cheek and muttered through it, "See? I'm entirely made of rubber! Head to toe!"

"Completely? That's a little weird!" Nami giggled, the thought her trickery instantly vanishing again.

"Hey! It's not weird! It's... Um... Hmm... Okay... It is..." Laughter filled the air. This was the beginning of a brand-new, unbreakable friendship. A friendship that will, hopefully, live on for as long as time.

* * *

**Aw~! Best buddies~! I love friends~! :3**

**I'm back...! O_O So glad to be back to this place... I guess... (What was I thinking?! It's so much nicer and prettier in Vermont... O_O Why am I back in this dump?) Oh well... Home's home, I suppose. :)**

**HOW Y'ALL DOIN'!? I actually finished this chapter the second before I had to leave to get on the plane, but didn't have enough time to write this Author's Note OR post it, so... That's why you didn't have this chapter for an entire week. :I BUT HERE IT IS~! :D Did you guys miss it~! :D**

**I did... O_O**

**I have been researching so many mythological creatures for my fantasy book. O_O So many... I EVEN HAD TO RESEARCH A UNICORN! That's OK, though... At least I used the ORIGINAL unicorn! :D (Unicorns are NOT horses with a horn on their head, people! They aren't! They have more animals combined in them! [The head of a horse, the body of a stag, the tail of a lion, and a horn on the top of their head, or as I like to call it: the horn of a narwhal!]) I don't exactly know why I brought this up again...**

**I'll see you in the next chapter, guys! Have a wonderful day! :D**


	20. The Weekend

**Hello, everyone~! :D**

**Ah...! Finally back to this story! :) Geez, the week has been SO chaotic...! At least I'm back to writing this again, yah know? :)**

**Phew! So glad that I'm back to writing! Life is so stressful right now! :( Let's not talk about that, though (it's personal, and this is about the fanfic, not my stressful life)! To sum it up, though, I got sick... of many things~! ;D Let's write something happy for all you guys that have been having a stressful life just like I have! Heh heh! :D **

**DID YOU GUYS READ MY NEW FANFICTION DRABBLE-THING?! It was so stupid, but really funny! If you could, go check it out! (It's reeeeeaaaally dumb! XD) It's a Revolutionary fanfic, so if you don't like the revolutionaries, geeeeet out! (Why are Marines reading my fanfiction!?)**

**I don't know when Chapter 2 of Cohabitation will come out (_Valeria!_)... I hope soon. I'll get back to you on it soon. :)**

**All right! Let's get into this book already, shall we? C'mon~! Let's have fun together! :)**

* * *

Nami stared up at the bulletin board that hung where it was every single day, at the end of the main hallway where the lockers were placed. Her and many other students stared up at the new announcement that had been stuck there.

"Seriously...? Is that true...?" a kid beside her whispered to his friend.

"I guess so! I don't understand why, though," the boy's friend replied, "After all...what could Seifu Academy want with us? Could it be because they're attracted to the government? It still doesn't make any sense, though..."

"Yeah! We're two completely different schools! They don't need to come in here! There's no point!"

Nami frowned. It was kind of strange... After school, she decided to tell Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp about it. "Didn't you guys see the flier? Why do you guys seem just fine about it?!"

"Because it's boring..." Luffy retorted with a frown, "That stuff doesn't concern me! It concerns the principal and all of the teachers! Not me. If I'm a problem, they'll just expel me and then-" Luffy stopped. His eyes narrowed, his mouth opening just a little. Everyone paused as they watched him stare out into space.

Zoro rolled his eyes, ignoring his friend. "What he's trying to say, Nami, is that you should just brush it off your shoulder, too. Thinking about it is useless. It'll only stress you out for no reason! They're not coming to observe you, only the school, that's it. Everything'll be fine, Nami! Okay?"

Luffy suddenly snapped out of his daydream again. "Yeah, Nami! Don't worry about it, Nami! Life will continue to be normal. Just because some strict school is coming to judge us doesn't mean that anything bad'll happen!"

Usopp frowned, unconvinced. He thought that Nami was right to worry. They were a frightening school! He didn't want those creepy people coming to loom over their unguarded, weak, and puny heads! "H-hey, Nami...? When did that flier say that they were coming?"

"In about two weeks," Nami replied with a similar look of worry.

"Luffy...!" Usopp whined.

"Usopp, you too, man? I thought that you were brave! You, of all people, shouldn't be worrying, if you see what I'm saying!" Luffy told him.

Usopp stopped. "N-no, of course! I'm not worried!"

Luffy grinned at him, patting his shoulder. "That's a man! Now, we should head home, don't yah think?" The black-haired teenager smiled at them. "See yah tomorrow, guys!"

Nami and Usopp nodded as Luffy and Zoro walked down the street out of the campus, waving good-bye as they went. Zoro sighed. "This sucks...!" he muttered, "Why'd your brother have to leave early today?"

"It's probably because he didn't want me stealing his car again...! Shishishishishi!" he giggled nervously. Looking up at the blue sky above them, he commented, "At least it's getting cooler out! I can't wait for winter~!"

Zoro looked at him as if he was insane. "Are you kidding? Winter's the worst, man! It's so freaking cold!"

"I love snow~!" Luffy chuckled, "It's so beautiful~!"

The green-haired man snorted and rolled his eyes. "Typical Luffy, hmm?"

"W-what's that supposed to mean, yah jerk!?"

There was no response.

Finally, Luffy broke the silence, "Me and my brothers were going to go camping this weekend! We're going out to this old cabin that we used to live at! We built it together one year!"

Zoro paused. "You built a cabin...? An entire cabin?"

"Yep!"

"How's... How's it doing...?"

"What... What d' yah mean by that...?" There was no answer again. "Anyways! It's close by to where our foster mom is! We're going to visit her, too. It's been so long since we've seen her! I wonder how she's doing...?"

Zoro smiled at him. "Well, you're going to find out this weekend, aren't yah?"

Luffy giggled. "You bet I am! You know what? One day, me, you, and all of our other friends should all go camping together at some point! Usopp could bring his little brother, you guys could bring any of the other friends you'd like to come as well, it'd be great, don't you think?"

The green-haired teenager hesitated. He had never been friends with anyone that had wanted to do something with him. He'd never spent time with friends before like that. A small whispered in his head that he knew that Luffy wouldn't want to hear: _'No thanks...'_ The thought of doing something like that made him a bit angry. That was something that he didn't want to do, not in a million years. "I... I'll think about it, okay, Luffy?"

"Oh, yeah! It was just a wish, you know?" he laughed.

Zoro forced a smile from his lips. He wasn't ready to be buddyish with anyone like that. Talking and laughing with someone was as much as he wanted to do. He was antisocial and proud!

Finally, they made it to their street. Luffy sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow, unbuttoning half of his shirt. "Finally! I can't wait to get home...!"

Suddenly, a car came speeding out of nowhere down the street, making their hair fly up, their shirts go fluttering all over the place, and Luffy's hat fly off of his head. The boy instantly stretched his hand out while Zoro wasn't looking to grab the straw hat, slamming it back on his head.

"What the hell...!" Zoro growled, looking out in the direction of the crazy driver.

"What's that guy's problem?" Luffy snorted. He turned to Zoro and ordered, "Zoro! Let's go check it out, quickly!"

"Yeah!" It was a good plan, too. It was obvious that there was something very wrong with a person speeding _way_ past the speed limit on a cul-de-sac.

The two ran as fast as they could down the road until they finally got to the end. They gasped when they saw that the car had driven straight through the house at the very center of the cul-de-sac. "Holy shit!" Luffy gasped.

"What the hell happened!?" Zoro exclaimed.

They ran over to the damaged car, looking inside at the driver. His head was laying on the large, white airbag. Luffy opened the car door and dragged the man out of the car. Blood dripped from his head, nose, and mouth. Zoro bent down to the man's chest to listen for a heartbeat. "Well?" Luffy asked.

"No good. He's dead," he replied seriously.

"Dammit!" Luffy cursed. He looked down at the man some more. In his hand he held a phone that was turned on to the Messages app. "Look, Zoro! His phone is on!" Just when he said that, a new text popped up that read, 'r u still their'. In the texting box down below, it showed that the man had already written, 'wht a bitch lol'.

"Luffy! Do you know what this means?!" Zoro gasped, whipping his head over to look at him.

"Of course I do! I'm not an idiot!" Luffy snapped.

They exclaimed at the same time, "_He was texting for help before he died!_"

"Dammit! It makes it even sadder! And he was so young, too!" Luffy cried, banging his hand against the grass. "What could have been the cause for this poor man's death!?" Luffy looked up, tears in his eyes as he scanned the area. Finally he stopped. "I've got it!"

"What is it, Luffy!?" Zoro asked frantically.

"There was no stop sign anywhere near here! That was the cause for this poor man's death! He didn't know when to stop!" Luffy exclaimed.

"Dammit! How could the government be so careless to not notice such an obvious thing!" Zoro snorted.

"No, Zoro! No! They're not careless!" he corrected him quickly. There was a long pause until Luffy finally finished dramatically, "They're just idiots! Now, it's up to us to bring safety to this street, no! To this town! Zoro, do you know what I'm talking about!?"

"Of course I do! I'm not stupid!"

Luffy suddenly sprang forward and grabbed the phone, erasing what the message already said and typed, in perfect English: 'Do not fret, miss! Your boyfriend's death shall be avenged! My friend Roronoa Zoro and I, Monkey D. Luffy, will make sure of that! We shall make sure that all of the streets in this town will have stop signs, all of them! And, when that is done, let it be known that I... am... single! (That last unimportant part was for you, miss... For you!)'

With that, Luffy threw the phone down onto the grass as the two walked away coolly. After they left, a message popped up on the other side reading, 'wht the hell r u talkin about u have none me for yers u shud no that im a guy u r talking wierd... r u ok?'

* * *

Luffy stretched up to the ceiling as far as he could reach as the front door closed behind him. "Is that you, Luffy?" Sabo's voice called out from the second floor.

"Yep!" he responded, throwing his backpack down on the couch and taking his tie off from his uniform, setting it down on the dresser next to the door. Walking further into the house, he looked into the kitchen and leaned over to peer into the dining room. "Where's Ace?" he called out to his older brother.

"He went out to go get supplies for our camping trip. He left about a half an hour ago. Knowing Ace, he probably got caught up in the food section trying to decide which types of meat to get." Luffy looked over to see Sabo walk down the stairs with a large dufflebag in each of his hands. "Here," he told Luffy, throwing his little brother one of the dufflebags, "Help me put these bags in the car. In the morning, I want to get up, get dressed, wash up, and go as soon as possible. Putting these things in the trunk tomorrow will only waste time. The less time we waste, the sooner we will get there."

"Okay." Luffy nodded with a smile.

Sabo walked toward the door. As he went, he happened to walk past Luffy, sniffing in a strange scent that came off of his little brother. When he smelled the stench, his nose wrinkled up in disgust. "What the hell is that revolting smell, Luffy? What have you been doing out there? Touching dead people?"

"Well..." Luffy hesitated. He finally felt very disturbed that he had been handling that dead guy.

"Ah! Sorry, sorry. I shouldn't have even tried such a morbid joke," Sabo apologized, "Anyways, I don't care what you've been doing, just clean off your hands in the sink or something. I don't want you to be carrying around those bags with such gross-smelling hands..."

Luffy nodded, going into the kitchen to clean off his hands, but returning as quickly as he had left. Sabo opened up the door, holding it ajar so that his little brother could pass by him before he shut it once more.

The two walked over to the car Luffy a few paces in front of him. Sabo reached into his pocket before he made it to the vehicle to grab the car keys and click the button that opened up the trunk. "Luffy, I think that you should know that Ace and I have invited a few friends to come along with us," his older brother explained, "I told my new friends Koala and Hack that they could join us and Ace said that Marco could come, too. You know who Marco is, don't you?"

"Of course," Luffy replied, setting the bag in the trunk of the car.

"Good," the blond responded with a smile. As he shut the door, he reassured his little brother, "You'll like Koala and Hack! They're very nice people. I've told them all about you, you know! They're really excited to finally meet you!"

Luffy nodded without responding.

Sabo paused before continuing. "They called today. When they did, the said that they were on their way. They're probably already there by now. When Ace called Marco, he was just about to leave." The blond looked over to his brother when he was finished. He wasn't very talkative now... Finally, they made it back in the house. When the front door shut behind them, he asked his little brother lightly, "Luffy? Are you all right?"

The teenager hesitated. At last he whispered, "I... I don't want to meet your friends, Sabo..."

"What? Why not?"

Luffy clenched his fist together and gritted his teeth. "That new job is taking you away from us, from your brothers, from our brotherhood! You stay up late at night researching people to hunt down the next day! I have some idea of what that job of yours is, Sabo! It's like Ace's, isn't it? Ace doesn't do that kind of thing! Ace is already sort of distant all the time! I'm not sure why but... I can see it..." Luffy whipped around to face the older man. "Sabo...! Don't, whatever you do, leave! Never, ever, leave us alone when we need you!"

Sabo stopped. "L...Luffy...!" He was right, about every single thing. Oh, how he wished the teenager wasn't... Sabo stepped a bit closer to his brother to put his hands on his little brother's shoulders. "Luffy, you know that I would _never_ leave you and Ace all alone! I will always be there for you two. No matter what. That's a promise."

The black-haired teenager bit his bottom lip. He wanted to believe him, but something deep inside his heart hissed that he couldn't...no, not yet... "F...f-fine..." he forced the words out, looking away.

Sabo frowned softly, pulling his kid brother in for a large hug. At that moment, Ace opened up the door screaming at the top of his lungs, "Wazzup, everybody!? I got snacksssssssssss..." He paused, staring with wide, confused eyes at the scene in front of him. "Oookay...? I'll just...go, then?" he whispered, shuffling away from them and into the kitchen.

The blond-haired man felt a sad sting inside his heart as he hugged his little brother close. Luffy was right... He had been very distant from them lately. He had to be careful with that. He was the elder brother. Brothers have to look after each other. For some strange reason, he knew, that if he didn't watch over the two of them, something very bad would happen. And he wasn't going to let that happen.

* * *

**_RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!_** **I'm finished! Finally! This took too long! I accidentally deleted this so many times...! O_O After deleting it, having to wait a week because I'm not allowed on my computer during the week, and trying to figure out what to write, it's finally done...! Finally...**

**SABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Oh my god! Can you guys not wait for episode 663?! I can't! And by _can't_ I literally mean can't! I'm screaming and dying inside...! O_O While watching 662 I LITERALLY felt like dying of happiness. I don't even know how I'll react with this next one... Sabo~...!**

**I have a friend of mine who's finally gonna read this freaking book! So I've been proofreading this through the past week to make sure there's no major spoilers in here because she's only read the first five volumes. (But, sadly, she already knows about Ace and Sabo because 1. I can't keep it in, and 2. because I told her about it before I even knew she was going to read it).**

**By the way...! You MUST remember that stop-sign thing! It'll be VERY VERY VERY important later on. Like, introducing a new character and a new subplot. It's TOTALLY not serious and pretty much only for comedy. I'm serious.**

**I also want you to remember Sabo's promise to Luffy. I'm sorry, but that's going to be important too...Anyways...! Moving on...!**

**I really hoped you liked it, sorry for the delay, and, as always, have a wonderful week! :D**


	21. The Cabin

**Hey, guys~! My sister kept urging me onto writing this chapter all week. I'm super excited - you guys are gonna love it! :)  
**

**It's been so long since I've published a chapter! So many things have happened! Let's just say this: SPOILERS: Traffy's a... D?! Who would've guessed?! It's so sudden, but makes SO much sense! God... what am I gonna do with Luffy and Law's relationship in here now!? Gah! I'll just leave it. They won't be family! They'll just be friends still! ... Or... I could always... Aha! I've got it, I've got it! Never mind! **

**I'm basing their cabin off of a really large house/mansion that my family stayed for my aunt's wedding in Vermont. It's at a place called the Grafton Inn, the White Gates House. It's super pretty and very big. I'm kind of basing the interior off of it.**

**Anyways! Enough about my boring life! Let's get this camping trip started shall we? (Finally!) Let's go! :D**

* * *

Luffy jumped as his eyes suddenly flew open. He sat up in his seat in the back of the car. When he looked over he saw that Ace was also sitting up in the passenger's seat in front of him, the jacket that he had covered over himself while he slept slipping off of his shoulders. Sabo slowly drove along a thing road in the middle of a deep, sunlit forest.

The black-haired teenager leaned forward to stare out the window beside him. Twigs, dead leaves, and bushes were scattered all over the ground as immense trees towered high above his head. He always enjoyed visiting their cabin. Technically, however, it was really Sabo's cabin, but, as his brother, it was his cabin as well.

Finally, they pulled up into the dirt driveway that encircled a large oak tree beside the house. There was already a dark blue jeep and a black car parked on the other side of the house already. When the brothers stared out their windows at the vehicles, Sabo told the two with a large smile, "Ah! Great! It looks like Marco, Koala, and Hack have already made it here!"

Ace grinned as well. "I'd guess that Marco got here overnight while Koala and Hack just got here, going off the times they gave us. I can't wait! This is going to be a great trip!"

"I agree!" Sabo nodded. Luffy grandfather, Garp, had taught the three brothers that he best way to spend time with friends was to go on adventures together. The stress of the wilderness would increase their bonds because of their immense fear, he told them. So, Sabo, Ace, and Luffy never went to the movies or games with their friends; instead, they did adventures in the middle of nowhere. Only the bravest stayed, that or the ones that could survive without a single injury.

Luffy sighed as he opened up the car door and stepped out onto the dirt. As he stood up, he let his breath take in the wonderful, cool scent of pine and dew-covered leaves. He loved the smell, it made him feel happy, at home, and, most of all, free. The black-haired teenager turned on the ball of his foot, suddenly feeling fully awake after his long nap, making his way to the trunk to grab his own bag.

Luffy stopped, he looked over to see Ace take a step out of the car as well. His face... He had that look on it again... That look of impatience and restlessness... He hated when he got that look on. When he did, it always ended the exact same way... Luffy shook his head. Maybe he would decide not to today; after all, they were at the cabin. The cabin was supposed to be peaceful and calm. _Not _stressful. With that, Luffy continued to make his way towards the trunk.

Just as he took his dufflebag out, the door to the cabin flung open and a woman with light brown hair and a lean figure ran onto the porch. "Sabo-_kun_? Sabo-_kun_! You're finally here!" The young woman jumped off the porch, running as fast as she could toward the three men.

"Koala!" Sabo called out to her with a large smile. Koala let out a squeal of excitement as she gripped Sabo's chest in a huge hug, the top of her head only reaching up to the bottom of his neck.

Ace and Luffy's eyes widened at the scene. They suddenly lost the grip on their bags, letting them fall to the dirt. Never before had they seen such a touchy woman, nor had they ever seen someone hug Sabo so easily like that! Sabo smiled a little, feeling a little weird that she was hugging him as well, but put his free hand around her back. "S-Sabo...?" Ace finally whispered.

Sabo jumped and turned to his brothers, suddenly feeling very awkward that he was hugging her. He pushed Koala away from him not too gently without even realizing and said quickly, "Um... This is Koala, guys!" The blond-haired man turned to Koala again with a smile, "These are my brothers, Koala! The tall one in orange is Ace and the smaller guy in red is Luffy!"

Koala gasped in glee, running over to them. "Oh...! I've heard so much about you two!"

Luffy snapped out of his confusion and blinked. "Y-you have...?"

"Of course! Sabo's always talking about you boys!" Koala giggled at Luffy stepping an inch closer to the teenager, "It's so good to meet you, Luffy! Aww~! Look at you! You're so much cuter than I imagined you'd be!"

Luffy gasped, an embarrassed blush coming over his cheeks. He hated being called 'cute'...

Koala laughed at him. "Oh, I'm sorry about that!" She looked down at Luffy's bags, picking one of two up and walking away, calling over her shoulder, "Come on! Everyone's been waiting for you!"

When she was a fair enough distance away, Ace and Luffy huddled up close to Sabo and hissed with an evil smirk, "That your girlfriend, Sabo-_kun~_?"

Sabo's teeth went jagged and his eyes turned white as he snapped with a large blush, "Shut the hell up, you two! Koala's just a touchy person, okay? She just likes hugs! There's nothing wrong with liking hugs!" Ace and Luffy looked at each other, biting their lips so that they wouldn't burst into a fit of laughter.

Sabo frowned deeply at them and walked away. They giggled as they followed close behind their brother. When they walked up onto the porch, Koala clicked the door open, lifting it ajar for the three. When they walked in, they all set down the bags beside the tall, spiral staircase that sat to their very left the moment they opened the door, along with a large entryway to the long dining room. In the dining room was a small doorway the led to the kitchen that also included a small table that could also be used for eating at. When you looked to your right when you came in the front door, there was a large entrance to the huge living room.

It was a cozy, quiet house. Old lanterns hung above for lights, dimly illuminating the old house. "I have to say, _Sabo-kun_," Koala said as she turned to the blond-haired man, "this is a very beautiful cabin!"

"Cabin? It's barely that! It's more of a mansion than a cabin!" The small group looked up to the top of the tall spiral staircase to see Marco leaning over the railing on the other end, staring down at them.

"Marco!" Ace called out with a smile. Marco grinned back at him and jumped all the way down the stairs - which, of course, made Sabo have a second-long panic attack - falling on his feet in front of Ace. "Hey, man!" Ace laughed as they grabbed each other's hands and pulling the other to them so that they bumped shoulders. "How yah been, dude!"

"Pretty good! Really tired, though. Didn't get much sleep last night, you know, man?" Marco replied.

"Did you get in late or something?" Ace asked him.

"No. I couldn't fall asleep I guess." He leaned closer to whisper in Ace's ear, "This place kinda gives me the creeps, man!"

"Heeeeeeeeeeey!" Sabo complained from behind them as Ace burst out laughing. "I can hear you guys, you know!"

"Sabo?" Sabo turned around to see the large fishman, Hack, standing in the doorway to the living room. "Ah! You three made it. That's great." He said with a smile.

"Hey, Hack!" Sabo replied. "How do you like the cabin?" The blond asked as he walked up to Hack, standing beside him.

Hack grinned at him. "Oh, it's beautiful, Sabo! For being such an old place, it sure is magnificent!"

Sabo laughed. "Yeah! It's been in my family for years, but... my parents gave it to me because it wasn't 'as good as the other thirty mansions my family owned'... So they gave this place to me. Now it's _mine_!" Sabo turned around to the others. "Well, anyways, Ace, Luffy, and I will just go upstairs to put our bags in our rooms. We'll be right-"

"H-hey, Sabo?" Ace suddenly interrupted, reaching down to reach and grab something in his pocket, "Could you actually go put my bags up in my room for me? I... left something in the car..."

Sabo and Luffy stopped. "Why can't you do it, Ace? Your bags aren't going anywhere-"

"Can you just do it for me?" Ace said harshly.

There was a very long pause. The atmosphere of the room had instantly changed. There was a sick aura of shock everywhere, save for the beams of anger that radiated from the blond-haired man. Suddenly, Sabo growled to Ace, "Ace! Can I talk to you in..._private_, please?"

Ace frowned. "Sabo, I didn't-"

"Not yet, you didn't!" Sabo roared. He turned to everyone else, trying to calm down as he whispered, "I'm sorry, but can you guys all go somewhere else for a moment?"

Koala and Hack were the only ones that nodded. Koala, Hack, and Marco slowly made their way into the living room while Luffy stood his ground. "S-Sabo...?"

"Can you... leave, too, Luffy?" Sabo asked him quietly.

"B-but, I-"

"J-just go put your bags away, okay?" Sabo insisted.

Luffy hesitated. He paused before cautiously nodding his head. The black-haired teenager made his way up the stairs, a bag in each hand. He only looked back once to see Sabo and Ace glaring daggers at each other. As Luffy unlocked the door to his room, he could hear his brothers walking up the other stairs that were in the small dining room to the other rooms to discuss.

Luffy slowly walked in and set his bags down on the bed. Ace and Sabo's room was connected to his. There was a very tiny hallway that bound them together, inside the hallway was an entrance to a medium-sized bathroom.

From the other side of the door, Luffy could hear everything that they were saying loud and clear. "You're doing it again, Ace... You're doing this... this... _maniac_ thing you do! I thought that you told me that you'd stop it! I thought you had told Luffy and I that you had stopped doing _that_!"

"I have!" Ace insisted.

"Then what were you doing to do outside?"

"I was going to get my phone."

"You didn't bring your phone, Ace... We've never brought our phones to the cabin... There's no cellphone connection out here and _you know that_!"

"Why don't you just shut the hell up!"

Luffy sat down on the bed, staring down the small, dark hallway to the brown, wooden door. He was doing it again... Ace had been getting distant... He had been ever since he found out his father was Gol D. Roger, the famous treasure-hunter and criminal. He had found out in middle school when their grandfather told them. Ace instantly got interested in his father and wanted to know everything about him. And so, he would ask about him. All he received in response were spats and nasty remarks. Apparently, there was nothing good to say about this man.

This habit of his that he had developed most definitely got stronger after Luffy was given the opportunity to go to New World High. It was where Gol D. Roger had gone to high school. Ace and Sabo had a long argument about his going there. Of course, Sabo's logic won. That or their throats had gotten too sore to raise their voices any longer and the last one to make a wise comment was Sabo and that was where the conversation ended.

Ace had been doing _it_ ever since he found them in high school. And he hadn't stopped since...

"This has got to stop, Ace... You've taken it far too long! It's not good for you!"

"I _know_ that, Sabo!"

"Then why don't you listen to me?!"

"You think that I don't try to? Of course I listen to you! Your complaints are so loud that I feel like I'll go deaf! But..."

"But, what, Ace? Their screams are louder than mine!?"

"_Yes!_"

The argument suddenly stopped for a brief moment. Luffy felt his heart stop its loud, anxious pounding, hoping to hear that it was over for good. He had always loved his brothers. But, whenever this happened...he hated them so much that he felt like running up to them and knocking both of their lights out...just so the ringing in his ears could stop. Luffy found himself trying his hardest to hold onto the moments when everything was simple as best as he could, fretting that they would disappear just as quickly as they began.

"I'm sick of you..." He heard Sabo mutter.

"Right back at you, bitch..." With that, Luffy heard a door in their room slam shut, later hearing the front door bang closed as well.

Luffy sighed. Slowly, he rose to his feet, making his way over to Sabo and Ace's room. The black-haired teenager turned the knob and pushed it open. There on one of the beds, Sabo sat, staring down at his knees.

"S-Sabo...?" Luffy whispered.

"I thought that he was getting better, Luffy..." Sabo muttered as Luffy sat down beside him. "I thought that he was getting better..."

* * *

**Sorry if this took a huge drop in the mood, guys. I'm still trying to show you guys a little bit more of their personalities. If this didn't make sense, don't worry, it'll all make a lot more sense in the next chapter. I'll explain everything. (I think that you'll be able to tell by the name of the next chapter... But I don't know, I might change the name when it's done.)**

**Don't worry, though, guys! This whole cabin trip will NOT be this depressing. It'll be super ****fun ****and**** happy****. :) This is the only part that'll make you frown, I promise. :D**

**Good God, did that take a long time! I was trying my best to finish it up as soon as possible because I knew that you guys'd want this as quickly as possible. (All I'm wanting right now is to lift the mood again! God, it's sending weird nostalgic vibes...! I won't talk about it... You guys don't wanna know about my past! XD)**

**SPOILERS: Can't wait for the chapter~! I think... Goda?! Are you gonna make us cry? Is Cora-_san_ gonna die next chapter? Nah, I don't think this is the chapter where he's gonna die. I think in a few more chapters... I'm really confused, though, on how Law's gonna be cured! Maybe, just, maybe...! Next chapter will tell us...! MAYBE!**

**Okay, I'll try my best to be quicker next time! I promis- Actually, I probably shouldn't promise that... I'll just TRY, okay? Okay!**

**Bye, guys! I hoped you liked the chapter! Please comment! :D Have a wonderful week~! :3**


	22. Just Smile

**Hey, everyone~! :D**

**Oh my God! The episode, guys...! Was that new animation in there?! It looked different...! I liked it! :D (Even if Sabo did look a little stubby... :3) Speaking of Sabo, actually, Sabo didn't do his dorky little walk at the end! I was so mad! It would have been amazing! They're making Sabo too stern in the anime! You've got to loosen him up with his dorky walk! His dorky walk, I say, _HIS DORKY WALK_!**

**While watching the episode, I just skipped over the Franky and Senor Pink junk... Not too thrilled with them at the moment... (Besides, I read the manga, I know what's gonna happen, and I don't need to stick around for it especially if there's some filler fluff in there...) Senor Pink totally should have stuck with his whole ganster-style back in his younger days. At least he looked _SANE_, you know!? He's not even that old and he's already gone senile with the whole baby-wearing-diapers stuff! Just rip the bandaid off and let Franky kiss that creepy 19-year-old that really didn't matter to the story already... **

**OHMYGOD! I can't wait for Volume 76 to come out! :D Volume 75's cover got me so hyped for more! I don't even care who it has on the front, Sabo, Law, Cabbage- Cabbage?! Out of all the people to put on the front, there's no WAY that they'd put Cabbage in there! He's hasn't been shown in like...40 chapters or something! It'd be weird if they put everyone from Law's past on the cover (like they did for volume 60) but then there was Cabbage in the background with his mad, pointy-toothed face on. That'd be just WEIRD. I would wonder if Cabbage was going to be the new easter egg - Darn it... Why am I talking about this? O_O**

**I'm so happy to be writing this chapter, that last one put me in an anxious mood all week. I kept telling my friends about it, and they'd be confused, and then I'd have to tell them the entire story of One Piece over to them, and then they fell asleep, and then I got sad that they weren't listening- (I'm doing it again... Don't get off track, now, Strix...) ANYWAYS! Let's start this chapter, then, shall we? :D**

**Yes.**

**Yes, we should. BD**

* * *

The stench was strong. Very strong. He couldn't smell it, but he didn't need to. He had smelled it a thousand times before, so much that the putrid scent was now burned into his brain. Luffy watched it billow up and above his older brother's head like gray clouds, all streaming from his mouth and the small, rolled up piece of paper in Ace's right hand.

The cigarette slowly burned away in between Ace's fingertips. With his freehand, the black-haired man clutched his head in distress. He had been doing it ever since high school. After learning, in middle school, that his father wasn't the most 'popular' man that ever lived, he very quickly got depression. Luffy and Sabo had done everything in their power to make him feel better. It usually helped, until he would have sudden bipolar-like mood swings and decide to go think for a long time.

Luffy had heard Ace tell him things that frightened him, such as, 'I should have never been born...' Those words hit him deep down. It made him scream in his mind questions of how he could ever come to that conclusion when meeting his brothers - and even having them in general - made him feel like he was on top of the world!

A long time ago, Luffy had lost his mother and his father in some sort of freak accident that he couldn't quite remember. After that, he had no one, and Garp had never seem to soothe his loneliness. The only thing that ever did were his two older brothers. Having Ace tell him those things made the black-haired teenager remember the pain he had suffered when he was all alone with no one but his crazy, abusive grandfather to keep him 'company'. He never wanted to experience that ever again. No, never again. So, he decided to try his best to be the greatest little brother anyone could ask for, for his brother's happiness and his life. He didn't want Ace to feel alone. He wanted him to think that he meant something, that he mattered.

Luffy soon persuaded Sabo into joining him in making their brother feel better. It had been working for a while until high school came around. That meant more people, more feelings, and more advantages...

In middle school, Sabo and Ace had been in the same school together, living with their foster mother, Dadan. By coincidence the two of them had always been placed in the same class together (probably because they had chosen all the same classes to attend). However, when high school came around, the two had been split up into different classes, and not a single class they had together. So, when Ace was all alone, his pessimistic thoughts would slowly begin to come back to him. The more and more depressed he got, the more desperate he became.

There were a group of moronic teenagers that were in a few of Ace's classes that did almost every criminal act imaginable besides murder. While walking home one day, Ace had a run-in with them. They taunted him and teased him with things that would 'make him feel better'. Ever since that day, whenever Ace would feel down, he would go to the drug store, buy a pack of cigarettes, and smoke the whole box in one sitting, which would make him gone for a couple of hours, thus creating the heart-breaking distance that would sometimes break the three's brotherly bonds.

Ace wasn't stupid. He knew it was bad, and he hated it. That fact was clear through the look of sorrow in his eyes whenever he went away to smoke out his worries. So, Sabo made Ace go to his doctor to get depression pills. These, thankfully, helped Ace's mood a great deal, giving him back his jumpy, fun attitude. However, whenever he wouldn't take his medicine, his attitude would change almost instantly from cheerful and bright to quiet and stern. He would either forget to take them or just not want to. They were helpful, he knew, but also a burden...

This morning, they didn't want to leave their friends waiting for too long, so they left as early as they could possibly bear. The three had rushed out of the house so fast that Ace had forgotten to take his pills. Without his medicine, Ace's depressed feelings could come back just as quickly as lighting could take to strike the ground.

Luffy stared out at Ace through the window in the living room that looked out upon the wide porch. In the center of the large room sat two couches that faced a coffee table that separated them. Hack sat on one of them while Marco sat on the other. Koala stood behind Luffy looking out the window along with him.

"Oh..." Koala whispered when she saw him, "Oh my... How long has he...?"

Luffy narrowed his eyes. "Long enough..." he muttered. He turned his head away, closing the curtain that had been covering the window before he came. "I'll go give him his pills..."

As Luffy began to walk away, Koala took a few steps toward him asking, "Where's Sabo-_kun_, Luffy-_kun_?"

"He's in his room," Luffy replied, "You should probably go check on him, Koala. I think that he'd like some company."

"All right," Koala said with a nod, walking as fast as she could toward the stairs in the kitchen.

Luffy stopped beside Ace's bag that still sat with Sabo's beside the spiral staircase. He bent down to it and grabbed Ace's medicine, standing up and clutching onto his water bottle that stood on the desk under the stairs. The black-haired teenager turned around and walked out of the house.

On the porch there was a couch swing that swung in the gentle breeze, two bench chairs with freshly fluffed pillows that rested on them, and a small, glass coffee table that stood firmly in between the two white-painted chairs. On the glass a pack of cigarettes sat there next to Ace, whom sat on the chair on the right. He looked up at his little brother with sadness and a hint of anger in his gaze as he tapped against his cigarette, making some of the ash fall to the white wood next to his black boot.

"Lu, what are you doing out here...?" Ace asked him, Luffy clearly hearing the crack in his voice. The teenager gulped, walking over to his older brother and setting the pills and water bottle on the table and taking the pack away from him. Ace widened his eyes quickly, reaching his hand out to try and snatch them away from his little brother before they got too far away. "Hey! Those are-"

"No, Ace..." Luffy interrupted him.

Ace stopped and looked up at him. At first, he looked at him for a while with a black, confused face. Before long, though, his expression finally transformed into a face of sadness and regret. His lip quivered as he threw his head down. He pulled his arm high up, throwing the cigarette down to the ground, immediately stopping on it to burn away the smoke. Now, with all of his hands free, he quickly grabbed hold of his forehead.

Luffy sighed, sitting down in the chair next to him. "A-Ace-" Luffy reached out his hand to grab his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Luffy..." Ace whispered to him. "I don't know why I... Is this... Is this my punishment for being_ that man's_ son?! It's a curse, Luffy... A curse! _A damn, shitty curse! _I should have... I should have never been born..."

Luffy's eyes widened. His grip on his brother's shoulder grew stronger as he screamed at the top of his lungs, "_JUST SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY!_"

The black-haired teenager could feel his older brother jump a bit, looking up into his eyes. "W-what...?"

"I'm sick of you just assuming things like that! If you let those words get at you, then maybe you're not as strong as I thought you were, Ace! They're just... They're just words, Ace! Words can't hurt you...!" Luffy could see Ace's eyes growing a little more hurt. There was a long pause. The only thing that could be heard was the wind brushing through the leaves in the trees and stirring up the ones that lay on the ground.

Luffy wasn't the smartest person in the world, but even he could read Ace's thoughts, _"But they can, Lu... They so can..."_

"Whatever the hell those bastards tell you doesn't matter! They don't matter," Luffy said as he pushed Ace's depression pills closer to him, "But _you_ do. Now, take care of yourself and take those pills."

Ace nodded slowly after a while. He grabbed the tiny jar of pills and unscrewed the bottle, shaking a few pills out into his hand. The black-haired man stared down at the medicine for a few a seconds before throwing them in his mouth, quickly gulping a drink of water, making them wash down his throat.

"Feel better?" Luffy asked him quickly.

Ace laughed at him with a weak smile, messing up his hair playfully with his fist. "It doesn't work that fast, little brother!" he taunted. Luffy laughed and pushed him away. The two smiled cheerfully once again at each other. Ace looked away and said, "I feel bad about those things I said to Sabo, Lu..." He turned back to his little brother and asked, "Where's he?"

"He's where you left him," Luffy told him, "But Koala's up there trying to comfort him. He was really affected by all that..."

Ace frowned, but then quickly stopped. His look of sadness suddenly turned into an evil smirk. "Did you say _Koala_ is with him?"

Luffy blinked in utter confusion. "Uh... yeah... Why?"

The black-haired man burst into laughter, slapping his kid brother on the back, making his spine suddenly straighten in the most rigid pose that anyone has ever been in before. "This is good, little bro! This is _good _for him! He's finally got a girlfriend! And a cute one, too!"

"W-what are you talking about, Ace?" Luffy asked, even more confused than before. "I don't think that Koala's his girlfriend..."

"What! Course she is-" He stopped. "Ah... I guess you're right about that... He just doesn't seem _interested _enough!" He looked away with a frown. Suddenly, his expression again became a smirk. "But that doesn't mean that we can't change that...!"

Luffy widened his eyes as he watched Ace jump up and run inside. "W-wait, Ace!" he screamed after him as he chased him into the house.

Ace skidded into the living room calling out, "Hack! Marco! Let's go for a little walk!"

The two brothers stopped in the entryway to see them playing poker. Marco smiled and raised up a hand to him. "Yo, Ace! You're lookin' better, man!"

Hack sat up and inquired, "Weren't you just yelling in anger with Sabo? What's gotten into you? If you're feeling better, shouldn't you be checking up on your brother? Of all things to do after an argument like that, you propose to go on a _walk_?"

"Psh!" Ace laughed, waving his arm as if throwing the worry away, "_Please_! Sabo-_'kun'_ is fine! He's got his little Koala-Bear!"

Marco burst out laughing while Hack muttered, "K-Koala-Bear...?"

"I get what you're doin', man!" Marco giggled.

"You do? If you do, please tell me, because I'm utterly confused!" Hack snapped.

Ace and Marco screamed out at the same time, "MATCH-MAKIN'!"

Luffy paused, narrowing his eyes, trying to break down where he had heard that before and what exactly it meant. When he finally got it, he had to break down who was being paired together, and when he figured that out, he had to try to piece together why, but by then he had already given up because all that thinking had been hurting his brain.

"You mean to say that you're trying to make Sabo and Koala fall in love!?" Hack screamed.

"Oh!" Luffy gasped, finally getting it, which made him laugh so hard that he fell to his knees.

"Yes!" Ace said, "He needs a girlfriend! He's too serious and stern! He needs to let loose a little bit, don't yah think!"

"No! I don't think so! I think that Sabo is fine the way he is! He doesn't need a girlfriend, and he really doesn't need _Koala _as his girlfriend!" Hack growled._  
_

"Sure, he does!" Ace and Marco said, Luffy tried his best but was laughing so hard that all he could manage was a tiny mutter of a 'he does'.

"NO! I won't let you do this to Sabo! Not in a million years! This is too cruel and I won't let this happen! Never ever, EVER!"

* * *

"Sabo-_kun_..." Koala handed the blond-haired man a new box of tissues.

"And that's what happened!" Sabo screamed, dabbing at his wet cheek. "And then we pranked him again by setting a trap for him with a bunch of slingshots and pies! The old man went into his house and then all of the twenty pies that we had set up flew at him. He was mad at first but then was okay with it after he figured out that the pies actually tasted really good... And then Garp didn't care anymore..."

"He sounds like a really weird guy..." Koala said.

"Yeah. He was," Sabo said, wiping away tears that he had shed while laughing about how stupid Ace and Luffy's grandfather was. Koala had comforted him by telling him to tell her about something weird that had happened in his lifetime. Sabo had replied by saying, 'Does it have to be some_thing_?' and then went on to talking about the crazy, old man named 'Garp'.

"Are you feeling better now, Sabo-_kun_?" Koala asked, rubbing Sabo's back comfortingly.

"Y-yeah..." he said with a small blush. Sabo tensed up at her touch. No one had rubbed his back before... He didn't know if he liked it or not... It was just too weird... Inside his head, he chanted, _"Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Get your hand off my back. Get your hand off my back. Get your hand off my back."_

"That's good!" the brown-haired woman smiled, standing up from where she had been sitting next to him on the side of the bed.

Sabo quickly rose to his feet away well, straightening his shirt out. He followed Koala close behind out the door. Sabo stopped at the top of the stairs. "I don't think that Ace'll want me down there right now, Koala..." he muttered.

Koala turned around to him with her usual cheerful smile that never seemed to fade away. She reached a hand out to him. "It's okay, Sabo-_kun_! He's your brother, and he loves you!"

The blond didn't seem to notice her reaching out for his hand and said, "I-I guess so..."

She giggled and gripped onto Sabo's hand abruptly, pulling him down the stairs with her. "Come on, Sabo-_kun_! You're acting like you're going to meet him again for the first time!"

Sabo felt himself almost freeze up when she grabbed his large hand. He wasn't embarrassed or anything, it was just that he had never met a girl that was so touchy. No girl had ever even dared to touch him before. It was weird... He wasn't sure if he was okay with it or not... But, of course, he should be, right? They were friends, after all. There's nothing weird with that.

When they finally got to the bottom of the stairs, they saw no one and heard no one throughout the entire house. From out the window, Sabo saw that Ace was not sitting down on the porch anymore. Sabo suddenly called out, "Ace? Luffy! Hack, Marco!"

There was no answer.

Sabo and Koala looked at each other in confusion, their hearts pounding in confusion and slight worry. Koala let go of Sabo's hand as they both ran through the kitchen, dining room, past the spiral staircase, and, finally, into the living room. They skidded to a halt in the living room, almost tripping and falling over the Persian rug on the floor. There was no one in sight.

"Koala-_chan_!" Sabo ordered, "Check up stairs!"

"Of course!" Koala nodded, running as quickly as she could up the stairs - or as quick as anyone can up a spiral staircase. After a minute, Koala called out, "They're not here, Sabo-_kun_!" The brown-haired girl jumped down the stairs after checking.

When she jumped down, she saw Sabo scavenging through Luffy and Ace's dufflebags. "Dammit!" Sabo cursed.

"What? What is it, Sabo-_kun_?" Koala asked him quickly.

"They're shoes... They're..." Sabo stopped. He knew exactly what happened...and, unfortunately, he knew all too well why. He looked up at her and muttered, "They're gone, Koala-chan... They're gone..."

* * *

**Yay~! It's done~! :D**

**Phew! I'm glad I got that sadness out of the way! :) Are you guys excited for the next chapter? I know I am! ;D I've got a lot of fun stuff planned out for the next chapter! :3**

**I hope you guys aren't hurt by the thing with Ace having depression and all... :( I mean, come on! Ace does kind of have depression in general! But, don't worry. Ace isn't going to be super depressed through this story because he's got those depression pills. :) Anyways, I hope you guys understand why I did that. It's not to be super sad with Ace, it's just because, well, it's kinda true! **

**This wasn't a very long Author's Note, but that's okay! (I've gotta get off, like, _right now_! O_O Anyways, bye, guys! ****Hope you enjoyed the chapter! ****Please comment****, and have a wonderful week! :D**


	23. Lost

**Hello, everyone~! :D**

**Happy Veterans Day, guys! :D**

**_READ THIS PLEASE:_ Grr! I have things that I want to change about previous chapters but the ones that I want to change have already expired! For example, I want to change Chopper's age. How can Chopper be their friend if he's five years old! Sure, they can be nice and friendly to each other and act like friends, but what I want and NEED is for him to be a part of his group! He can't be apart of Luffy's group if he's five! Also, something that I AM going to change - and YOU, who's reading this! Good for you, now you can know that I've changed this - anyways, Luffy isn't going to be the King of Champions (or whatever the heck I put before) he's going to be the King of the Adventurers. You'll see. It'll all make sense "soon".**

**I'm trying to get my two best friends (that are also anime nerds) to read One Piece. They really want to but they scared because of how long it is. (Chapter 767 on the way~! I mean, at least it's not Detective Conan or anything, which is getting it's 1000th chapter soon. Haha! Who I am I kidding? That's gonna SO be One Piece one day. No one would want to read it then! XD XD XD X( :( * depressed sigh* Oh god...)**

**Anyways, congratulations, guys! We got 100 comments! (Thank you so much, Shiro-no-Ouji!) I would have done a little celebration for 100 favorites or something like that, but... I kinda missed it... _ But, how about when we get to 150 favorites, I'll write a special chapter or something. (And if I miss that, I'll try to catch it at 200. No matter what, though, I'll do something special once we reach 200 favorites.) You guys are so great! I didn't even think that so many people would like this story! I'm SO glad you like it, too! I'll try my best to keep up... _whatever_ the heck you like about this fanfiction! :)**

**Thanks so much, you guys! Now, let's get this chapter started! :D**

**(Bonus points go to the person who can figure out what reference I'm hinting at in here. Bonus points of what? No idea...)**

* * *

"And that's how you throw a ninja star, Luffy!" Ace told his little brother.

"I'm still so confused, Ace," Luffy said, "What's the difference between throwing it side-hand rather than overhand and underhand? Why does it _have _to be the side-hand!? It doesn't make any sense!"

"Yes, it does, baby bro!" he defended quickly, "If you throw it overhand or underhand, then you'll hurt yourself! If you throw overhand then-"

"Why are you even talking about that?!" Hack suddenly snapped, interrupting the two on their lesson of 'How-To-Be-A-Freaking-Awesome-Ninja'. "We're on a walk in the forest. The topic of 'how to throw a ninja star' was completely unrelated to what you had been previously talking about: how little food we had in the house!"

Ace and Luffy looked behind their shoulders to glare at Hack. "What are you talking about, Hack?" Ace scoffed, "'Unrelated'? No! Every time is a good time to learn 'How To Be Ninja'!"

Hack sweat-dropped and muttered, "That doesn't even make any sense, Ace-_san_..." When they only responded by giggling at each other, the fishman rolled his eyes and looked back at the map in his hands. They had been walking for about five minutes, but they were already in the middle of - what seemed like - nowhere. Ace and Luffy were walking at the very front and had been talking about thousands of random things, moving onto another completely different subject the fastest that Hack had ever seen, Marco was in the middle, and he, himself, had been taking his time at the back of the group.

Hack was a quiet man. He didn't need to join in with the crazy antics of the youngsters in front of him, nor did he want to, either. The sophisticated fishman didn't need to worry himself - or bother himself, for that matter - with the two black-haired men. They were just fine staying about six feet ahead of him. He also hoped that they would just stay that way instead of annoying him. Truthfully, he didn't even want to join them on their walk. He had come on this vacation to protect his new boss and spend time with his friends, _not_ to be concerned with childish teenagers.

Suddenly, Luffy held back until he was walking at a steady pace beside Hack. He was leaning forward slightly, his hands tucked securely in the pocket of his jacket that was attached to the stomach. Hack felt the hair on the back of his neck rise in slight annoyance. He wouldn't let his worries of something going horribly wrong hold him back from being the polite man that he was. If Luffy wanted to talk to him, he would be as kind to him as he possibly could.

"Whatcha doin', Hack?" Luffy asked him.

Hack looked over at the black-haired teen, extremely cautious and thinking through everything that could go wrong. He could make fun of him, he could take away his map and leave them stranded in the middle of one of the largest forests in this land, or he could make him join in with their antics...! However, the moment he looked at Luffy, all he saw were his large, owlish eyes. They were gray, letting out a strong calm feeling. The fishman was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt that he could ever think such things about such an innocent boy. "I'm looking at the map," Hack suddenly replied instantly without worry.

"And why're you doing that?" he inquired.

"Well, I don't want to get lost, you know!" Hack replied quickly.

"No. I don't know..." Luffy suddenly frowned. Suddenly, Luffy said the strangest thing that Hack had ever heard, "Don't we want that?"

That sentence caught Hack quite off guard. It wasn't because it was bad or anything. It was because no sane person would think that. Why would someone _want_ to get lost? That's just absurd! "N-no, Luffy-_kun_... We don't want to get lost... That's actually the last-"

Suddenly, Luffy snatched the map out of Hack's hands and stuffed it into his mouth. Hack was so shocked he almost screamed a high-pitched screech. The fishman watched in astonishment as the black-haired teenager munched away at the large paper ball in his mouth. The more he ate, the less trouble he had with gobbling it down. Hack looked over at the two men in front of him to see them bursting into huge fits of laughter, having to hold onto each other to keep their balance.

Hack looked back over to Luffy and whispered, still in awe, "Why did you eat my map?"

"I was hungry," Luffy replied simply.

"Even if you were hungry, you wouldn't eat my map, Luffy-_kun_!" Hack growled.

"Well, I just did!" the black-haired teen said quickly, raising his head in pride.

Hack hesitated. He was still _so_ confused... These kids were stranger than he thought they were... And he even thought that they were strange before! He shouldn't have trusted Luffy, no matter how innocent he looked. Looks can be deceiving, after all. "Hey, Ace?" Marco suddenly asked his friend.

Ace looked over at him. "Yeah?"

"How do you think that your brother feels about you leaving him all alone with only Koala. I mean, you didn't give him any sign why we left, either," Marco asked.

"Psh! Sabo's probably thrilled! He loves that little brunette! I can see it in his _eyes_!" Ace whispered to him.

From behind them, Hack roared, "I'd have to disagree with that! Whatever the hell you think you're seeing is some trick your mind is playing with yourself! They aren't in love and they never will be!"

Luffy ran up beside his brother. "I kinda think he's right, Ace. I bet that this won't get anywhere, actually. He's probably hiding in the corner or something because he knows what we're trying to do to him. He's probably either sad, scared, or really pissed off."

* * *

Dammit... Dammit freaking Christ... Why was he stuck with such idiotic brothers? They didn't get it. They didn't seem to comprehend that a guy can be friends with a girl _just fine_! It was annoying. Really, really, really, really, really, really annoy-

"Sabo-_kun_? Are you-" Koala tried, peering into the living room to look at Sabo from where he sat with his head in his hands on one of the couches.

"DON'T COME IN HERE, KOALA-_CHAN_! I'M THIKNKING!" Sabo yelled, lifting up his head quickly. A sudden pang of regret stung his heart. He hadn't meant to sound so stern. He didn't think that his tone was come out sounding so loud and aggravated. It was just that he was trying to figure out how to contact his brothers, but he knew that it was impossible in the middle of the woods like this, especially since they had probably gone on a walk and...most definitely they had gotten lost - and if they hadn't, they would...

Koala frowned. "Did you just yell at me, Sabo-_kun_?"

Sabo paused and looked up at her, the rage in his eyes vanishing instantly. He gulped and looked down, shaking his head quickly, and then turning back to her as he sat back in his seat. "I'm... I'm sorry, Koala. I'm just..." he hesitated before finishing with a small lie, "...worried about them."

Koala came in and sat down on the couch beside him. "Sabo-_kun_, where'd they all go?"

"W-well, they went for a walk," Sabo replied quietly.

The brunette paused. She fidgeted a bit before whispering to Sabo, "And that's bad...why?"

The blond opened his mouth to answer before closing it once again. There was no way that he would tell Koala about his brothers' matchmaking game. Finally, he let in a deep, exaggerated breath. "You know what? Let's...um...play a Xbox game or something!? Here, here... What do you want to play? Grand Line Wars? Ah...! I love that game-"

"Sabo-_kun_? Are you avoiding the subject?" Koala asked as Sabo shoved a Xbox remote into her hands.

"NO! W-why would I be doing that?" the blond defended.

"I think that we should go find your brothers, Marco, and Hack..." Koala suggested.

"Nope! No way that we're doing that!" Sabo quickly said as he got up and walked out of the living room. "We'll just get lost just like they probably are right now."

"Where are you going, Sabo-_kun_?" Koala called out after him.

"I'm getting snacks! Don't get up! Start up the game while I'm getting the food!"

Koala hesitated before finally getting up, turned on the game console, and putting in the game. She let Sabo be the first controller while she was second. Suddenly, Sabo ran into the room with a bottle and a wedge of cheese in his hands.

"Koala-_chan_! We have a problem!" he screamed desperately.

"And what's that?" she asked him. She didn't know whether or not to feel concerned for her friend's well-being at this point. Obviously, something about the rest of their friends just suddenly taking off really got to him.

"We only have _one_ bottle of cola and _this _one wedge of brie left in the house!" Sabo exclaimed, holding up each one as he said its name. "What're we gonna do!?"

There was an extremely long pause until Koala finally said, "Well, I'm getting the cola."

Sabo frowned deeply at his friend. "Hey! I like cola, too, Koala! Don't think that you can get the cola while I'm stuck with this weird brie!"

Koala stopped. She stared at the 'brie' for a second that smelled much stinkier and looked a lot fuzzier than most brie. "S-Sabo-_kun_... I actually don't think that that's brie... I think that it's just moldy cheese..."

"Nonsense, Koala!" the blond scoffed, "I'd know whether it was moldy cheese or not! And this is..." Sabo hesitated after he finally smelled the awful stench of the cheese and noticed that the texture of it was much different than what he thought it was, "Now, this cheese might be a little different than most brie, but..." Another pause came over them. After a while, Sabo finally put down the hand that was holding the brie with a disgusted scowl, "You know what...? You're right, this isn't good cheese... This is just... This is just bad... I think it rotted over the the year that we left it in the fridge."

The brunette giggled a bit when her friend left the living room to go throw the rotten cheese in a trash can somewhere and go get the chips that he and his brothers had brought for snacks on the drive to the cabin. It was actually pretty fun, spending time with Sabo like this. He was such a nice man. In her lifetime, men had never been incredibly nice to her. Koala looked down at her hands, her smile fading away and her bangs falling over her eyes as she remembered the awful days of her sad childhood.

Her mother and father had gotten a divorce when she was very little, and she was forced to live with her well-paid - and rich - father since her mother didn't have a job at the time. And so, Koala went, at the age of five, across the country to the place where her father was born and raised. Even though her father was a government man, he was cruelest person she had ever met. He was abusive and selfish. In the crazy world in which she lived, child abuse was not against the law. According to the government, how a person chose to treat their kids was not something that they should be bothered with. Such things were just thought of as 'personal problems'.

Koala lived with her father until she was eleven years old when a few people had rescued her one night from her father's house. Because of the fact that her father was very high-up in the government, the kind people had saved her were seen as criminals and hunted down for the crime of 'injuring a government official'. It had turned out that they had saved many other people from abuse. These people were fishmen that were in a gang named 'The Sun', and they were led by enormous red, sun bream fishman named Fisher Tiger.

Fisher Tiger had promised to her, as a young girl, that he would take her back to her mother, since she had told him that she was the person that she wanted to see most. After all, she had always loved her mother. Her mother made her feel safe and happy. Koala remembered clearly her mother singing to her when she was little before she went to bed. To this day, she still could remember the same song she sang and how she sang it, as well as the feeling of comfort Koala had whenever she would tuck her in and hum to her as she drifted off to sleep. That was all she wanted, Koala had told Fisher Tiger, to go back to her mother, run into her arms, and hug her tighter than she ever had before.

And so, the kind fishman agreed and began their journey back to Koala's home island to her mother. The journey with the fishmen was the happiest and most exciting adventure that she had ever had. They were so kind to her. They treated her like a normal little girl, which was the thing that she had wanted most in the entire world: to not be hurt, and to simply be loved. And love her they did, with all their hearts. They would buy were new clothes, teach her to cook, throw parties with her, build snowmen together, play games at twelve o'clock, and wish her a good night just like her mother would (but without the singing; they said that that was because they were men and men don't sing).

Finally, they arrived at the island in which she was born. There, she at last saw her mother again, and she was able to do the thing that she had been wanting to do for over five years: hug her with all her might. It had been a rough six years for the little girl, and all she wanted to do was cry and be happy to see her mother again. Koala reluctantly said goodbye to Fisher Tiger and his friends and watched them disappear, never to see them ever again.

A few hours later, she figured out that her mother had called the government to tell them that fishmen had come to their island and had stolen Koala from her father. After she called them, the government officials came as quickly as they possibly could and made sure that Fisher Tiger, the criminal that they had been trying to catch for the past year now, didn't escape. Koala ran as fast as she could away from her island, running into spies of the Revolutionary Army. They told her that they would help her get out of her island and to a safe place. Of course, she didn't care if they were lying or not. All she wanted was to not get caught by her father.

That was when she signed up for the Revolutionary Army. She had met Hack there and quickly became friends with him. It was easy for her to open up to the revolutionaries, but she had never met a man, a human man, that she could show off her true colors so much to like Sabo.

"Koala?" Koala jumped and looked up to see Sabo sitting on the couch beside her and staring straight into her eyes with worry. "Are you all right, Koala? You looked sad when I came in here..."

Koala looked into his bright, cobalt blue eyes for a long period of time. The brunette was shocked when she felt herself blush and look away, pushing her bangs behind her ears. "I-I'm fine, Sabo-_kun_." Smiling up at him, she said, "Thank you, though."

Sabo smiled at her brightly. "That's what friends are for, Koala-_chan_!"

She looked up at him again, feeling a bit better but still a little awkward. "I was just remembering...my past..."

The blond's eyes widened before getting soft in sadness. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to be sad for whatever happened back then, Koala. There's nothing that can hurt you now. They're just memories."

Koala frowned. The horrors of her father felt still too clear in her mind to be some sort of memory. No, it was much more than that. Those thoughts still haunted her nightmares, frightening her in the middle of the night so bad that she wouldn't be able to sleep again for hours. After awaking from those terrifying dreams, she would then get scared by the darkness, feeling an internal fear that her father would spring out from the shadows in the corner or her room or from inside the closet, opening the door or crawling up from beneath the bed to yell at her or beat her for absolutely nothing. The only things of that time in her lifetime that seemed to be such a distant memory was that of Fisher Tiger. If she were to remember anything like that, if would be that kind fishman. Sadly, though, that wasn't how the mind worked. The most traumatizing things were more easily remembered than the happy ones.

Sabo noticed her sadness, and shook her gently to stir her again from her daydreams. When she looked up at him again, she saw him smirking playfully at him, "There's no way that those scary things you're thinking of can hurt _you_, Koala-_chan_~! You're too tough for all of them!"

Koala smiled at him weakly. "I guess..."

"Hey! But, I'm serious, though," Sabo assured her, "Even if there's something out there that's hurting you on the inside, whether or not it's here right now or somewhere far away, I'll always be there for you, Koala. That's what friends are for, right? I'd never let you down." He paused and looked around before adding, "A-and, of course, Hack'll be there, too! That's what I meant. _Hack and I_ will always be there for you!"

The brunette felt herself blush and a feeling of unbelievable happiness made her heart flutter a bit. "Thank you, Sabo-_kun_!" She pulled her friend in for a large hug, feeling extremely comforted and overjoyed by grasping him in a large, warm embrace.

She almost burst out into a fit of giggles when she felt Sabo slowly hug her back and mutter in a flustered voice, "A-a-anytime, K-Koala-_chan_!" She lightly pushed him away, smiling big at him, seeing the embarrassed red hues on his cheeks. Koala found it hilarious to have such a sensitive man as her best friend. He was the greatest, and his awkward shyness made her laugh every time because she _knew_ that she was too touchy for the blond. It was especially fun when she embarrassed him in front of his brothers. It wasn't like she was pranking him for anything. She just thought that it was funny how he reacted to her own attitude. He was just too cute, it was crazy.

"Now, shall we play this game, Sabo-_kun_?" Koala asked him, picking up the Xbox remote again.

Grabbing his, Sabo nodded. "I'd love to, Koala-_chan_!"

* * *

"Ace...! We've been walking for ten days...!" Luffy complained from at the back of the group, the soles of his feet now aching painfully. Really, they shouldn't be because he had grown up in this kind of lifestyle, but he had gone out in sandals, so the terrain wasn't very comfortable on his half-naked feet.

"No, we haven't, Luffy... It's just been an hour!" Ace replied, making the other three groan sadly.

"I told you that this was a bad idea! We shouldn't have left the cabin!" Hack snapped at them.

"Shut up, Hack!" Marco scowled at him.

Hack _so _wanted to knock some sense into these stupid kids... They should have known that if you eat your _only map_, that you'll get lost. Turning to Luffy, he told him his thoughts, "Luffy, you brat! You shouldn't have eaten my map! That's the only reason why we don't know where we are! Because you ate that stupid map! We have no other map! It was completely idiotic!"

"Hey! I know this forest like the back of my hand!" Luffy growled back at him.

"Oh yeah? Then _why are we lost_!?"

Luffy closed his eyes and threw his head up with a light frown, saying plainly, "It just turned out that way."

"_That's not an answer!_"

Ace turned his head around to look at Hack. He told him, "Hack, we have a map. You don't have to worry." The fishman walked up beside Ace, who began rummaging through his pocket. Finally, he pulled out an old piece of paper that had childish drawings inscribed on it. "Here we are! This is our map!"

"I am _not_ using that map. And even if I wanted to, there's no way I'd be able to find _anything_ with it," Hack pointed out harshly.

"We made this when we were kids, okay? It's not going to be a total masterpiece!" Ace looked back down at the map. "Now... the cabin should be somewhere around..." There was a long pause. The black-haired man stopped and turned the piece of paper in a bunch of different directions.

"I don't even see the cabin marked on the map," Marco replied, finally joining in the conversation as he looked over Ace's shoulder at the terrible map.

"Shhh! Be quiet! I've got this!" Ace snapped, "All I've gotta do...is find...where north is...!" Attempting about ten more times, he finally slouched down and muttered, "Never mind... I can't read this piece of crap..."

"Maybe we should ask that guy over there?" Luffy suggested. The three other men looked over at what he had been pointing at.

There, in the middle of the forest about five feet from them was a tiny, old man with a weird hunchback from either age or a deformity. He had denim overalls on and a white and red checkered dress shirt on that was stained, wrinkled, and old. He held a pitchfork in his hand. His bottom lip was well over his upper, almost touching his nose. He finally spoke up in a raspy, southern voice, "Y'all ain't from around these parts, eh?"

Ace cupped his hands over his mouth as if he was calling to someone far away even though the old man was so close to them, Luffy could almost make out every wrinkle on his raisin-like face, "We actually own this forest! It belongs to my brother Sabo! It's been in his family for generations, and they gave it to him after they kicked him out of their family seventeen years ago! Really, _you're_ the person who's not from around these parts!"

The old man bulged his eyes as if he was infuriated by what Ace had just said. "No! This here forest belongs to me!" the old man snapped, "I've owned this place for mah entire life!"

"Were you even listening to be, you old fart?" Ace replied a little too calm, putting down his hands and speaking in a much quieter tone.

"No! I was listenin'! The truth is, sonny..." The old man took in a huge breath, showing off his only two teeth, and hissed, "...I'm you fifty years in the future!"

There was a long pause.

"What the hell are you talking about, woman!?" Luffy snapped with a deep frown.

"L-Luffy... He is _clearly _a man..." Hack whispered to him.

"There's no way in hell that you're me fifty years in the future, yah crazy bastard!" Ace barked. "You don't even look like you used to have black hair! You look like you used to be a full-on red-head! Also, I'm twenty-one years old! You are sure not seventy years old, man! You're a hell of a lot older than that!"

The old man scowled at the four men. "How dare you! That's rude! I was _not_ a ginger when I was a youngster! Ah...! You should'a seen me! I had long, luscious, golden locks that curled round my ears like spirals! The ladies _loved_ me! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh-"

"_Shut the hell up_!" Marco interrupted the weird old man from his laughter that probably could go on longer.

"Also, I'm not seventy, that's right..." he said, "I'm thirty-nine."

"_No, you're not!_" the four men roared.

"And every single thing that you just said just proves that you're not me fifty years in the future!" Ace snapped.

The man cleared his throat. "Anyways, what are you four youngsters lookin' fer?" he asked them.

Before the three young men answered, Hack sprang forward and said quickly, "We're lost, sir! We're trying to find our cabin. Please, if you could, point us in the right direction to it?"

Ace, Marco, and Luffy glared at the fishman a bit while the strange, old man nodded. "I see... You're lookin' for a cabin, hmm? Yes... Well, I did see a cabin around in that direction," he replied, pointing straight ahead of them.

"Oh! You did? Thank you, old man! Thank you very much!" Hack thanked him, beginning to pull the three other men along with him, whispering, "C'mon, guys...! Let's go...!"

"We didn't need that crazy man to give us directions, Hack!" Luffy hissed when they were a fair distance away from the old man.

"Yes, we did! We were lost!" Hack growled.

"I really don't think that we should have taken advice from that old geezer... I doubt that he knows what he's talking about. He changed his mind about the crazy things he said too quickly, and, let us not forget those crazy things that he said! No sane man just says that to strangers! At least... not that I know of..." Marco said.

"I'm sure he wouldn't lie to us...like that, I mean. He's probably telling the truth about where Sabo's cabin is." There was a pause. "I hope..."

The old man watched them walk away from about thirty feet behind them. From deep within his throat, a low snicker rolled from his mouth. "Those brats...! They'll never be able to find their cabin ever again! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh-"

* * *

**Sorry about that abrupt ending, y'all! I noticed how long this was getting so I wanted to finish it off as soon as possible.**

**Did you guys like this crazy fanfiction? I sure did enjoy writing it. :) I hope that you guys liked reading it! :D Did this lighten up the mood for you guys? If so, good! (And if it didn't, I'll try my best next time, then, to make it better for you. :D)**

**I've been thinking about making a new fanfiction. It's AU. But not modern day. It's AU in the way of "what if _this _didn't happen". I'll keep working out the holes in the story before I put it on here. I don't want to just suddenly stop writing it because I have no idea how to end it like I did with _Reclaiming Life_.**

**I hope you have a wonderful week! Bye~! :)**


	24. Promise

**Hey, everybody~!**

**Sorry it took so long for me to start writing this, y'all! I just started writing this cool new book! :) It's steampunk! Oh my god, it's so exciting right now, guys! It's kinda like steampunk Pinocchio... Kinda... It's cool, maybe someday (if you guys want) I can show you where you can read it! **

**Hey, guys! I have something really important I want to ask you guys! (I mean... I guess it's not _extremely_ important. But, it is to me!) I've been having some trouble thinking about other fun things that you guys would like to see in this story. I would really appreciate it if all of you would request to me some things that you'd like to see! That would really help me out. You can ask for anything, but I might not choose it. If I don't, don't feel hurt it's just that it either doesn't fit with this fanfiction or it would make the future plot confusing. Thanks! :D**

**Hey! I've been thinking of a new fanfiction! That new book I just told you about is one that I wrote in a completely different style that this fanfic or any of the other books that I've ever written are in. That style is super fun to me, so I was planning on creating a fanfiction that I put my entire heart and soul into. With this one, truthfully, I just spit out whatever weird thing comes out of my head. :) The fanfiction that I'm thinking about will be super cool. It's an AU set in the 1920's during the "American" prohibition (I'm saying "American" because it still has all of the weird One Piece creatures, powers, and Devil Fruits in there). I think that you guys are gonna love it. ;) But it's still in progress, so that's all I can tell you. ;D**

**Anyways, let's just get this started! Because I ran out of things to say! :D OK! Here we go!**

* * *

"I think that Ace-From-The-Future tricked us, Hack!" Luffy called out to him.

"He wasn't Ace from the future, Luffy..." Marco muttered from in front of him.

"Be quiet, Luffy! He didn't trick us... It's...it's all fine," the fishman replied, observing their area, trying to find the moss on the trees, or roads, or anything! He, truthfully, agreed with him, but there was no way in hell that he was going to admit that.

Ace turned to Luffy and patted his back. "It's gonna be all right, little brother! We're gonna get back to the cabin in no time! Just try thinking about it like we did when we first got out here: it's like a walk."

"I thought that we were thinking about it like it was a way to leave Sabo and Koala alone so that they could fall in love with each other..." Luffy wondered.

"No. It was for a walk."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

There was a long pause.

Finally, Luffy whispered quietly, "M'kay...?"

They walked on for about five more minutes until a loud growl roared from within Luffy's stomach. It was so loud, that they were sure that that weird old man could hear it even though they were now about a mile away from him - unless he walked away from where he had been standing.

"Luffy... Did you eat anything before we left, little bro?" Ace muttered to him.

"No~! How could I when you guys were rushing out the door! I didn't want to possibly get left behind because I had been taking so long getting food!" Luffy whined, "Besides...we don't have any food. All we have is that old cheese that we left in there from last year..."

"That ain't true, little guy!" Marco said suddenly, "I brought a bottle of coke when I came! First thing I did when I got in the door was put it in the fridge!"

"How many did you bring?" Ace asked, getting a little excited.

"One."

Ace and Luffy sighed sadly. "Lame..." they muttered.

"What! No it's not! Coke is super good, guys!"

"Yeah, maybe... But coke, coke is no fun unless you share with everyone!" Luffy said to him.

"I-isn't it '_secrets, secrets_ are no fun unless you share with everyone'?" Marco asked him.

"Yes, it is!" Luffy said with a hint of pride in his voice, not realizing that the older men didn't find him as impressive as he thought that he had just become. The men looked away, deciding to ignore him.

"Sabo probably drank it already, though. He's probably freaking out because he knows what you guys are trying to do to him, so he's gone to go get something to eat. I know that he's one to do that because I've seen him stress-eat. He does it all the time," Hack said.

Ace smirked playfully at him. "You're weird, man! You're acting like you know our older brother more than we do!"

"That's not what I'm saying!"

"Then what are you saying?"

"All I'm saying is that your little 'plan' isn't going to work out! Sabo is _not_ going to fall in love with Koala. Never! They're too clever for that! They'll never fall into your sneaky tricks! Never! Not in a million years!"

* * *

"K-Koala-_chan_...!"

"Y-yes, Sabo-_kun_...?"

"I just realized..." the blond breathed.

"W-what did you realize, Sabo-_kun_...?" the brunette whispered to him.

"Y-you're so... You're so..._beautiful!_" Sabo screamed.

"Sabo-_kun_?" Koala called to him in confusion, making her long-haired, warrior-character in their game stop in her tracks.

Sabo's ugly, troll character turned to her. "Your character is so beautiful, Koala-_chan_!"

"Yeah! She's supposed to be! She's the beautiful princess Eldria from the harsh mountainous kingdom of Geldfrion who ran away before she could be married off to a snobby, rich nobleman, escaping to the woods to become an amazing samurai-ninja woman that later decides that she'd rather be just a plain warrior!" Koala told him. "Also, out of all of the cool characters there, you went with the troll? He's not even that spectacular! He's just an ordinary troll!"

"That fights for the well-being of all mankind!" Sabo defended.

"Only because Eldria forced him to!" Koala snapped back.

Sabo was about to say something back to her, but stopped. There was a pause until Sabo finally said, "Yeah, Steven's not all that exciting..."

"You should have chosen Helnt, Eldria's long lost love. That would have made the story make a lot more sense, actually," Koala told him, "Now it's just sort of... awkward. She's slowly and steadily falling in love with creepy Steven...! At least Helnt was a lot more attractive!"

"Helnt was an A-hole..." Sabo muttered as their characters continued onward, "At least Steven has some common sense. He's nicer than Helnt. While 'Mr. Gorgeous' has a paragon falcon for a pet, _Steven_ has... well..."

"What! What does Steven have?" Koala said with a playful smirk.

"Steven has a chicken, okay! Steven's pet is a chicken!" Sabo yelled, trying his best to have pride in his voice, but failed instantly when his voice cracked dramatically.

"That's what I thought!"

"Mr. Fluffy Feathers is an amazing chicken, Koala-_chan_! Mrs. Fluffy Feathers can shoot _fireballs_!" Sabo screamed.

Koala looked at him. "No, he can't. Sabo-_kun_, 'Mrs. Fluffy Feathers' doesn't do anything, and, since you were ashamed of that, you made up this whole story about the chicken. This chicken is actually just regular bird that randomly found us and started following you around everywhere and wouldn't stop! It doesn't even actually have a name, you just made one because you started to get attached to her!"

They both looked away as their characters continued to trek on.

"I still say that you should have gone with Helnt," Koala murmured.

"Stop it... I like Steven," Sabo muttered.

"No, I'm serious. He looked like you, actually. It would have made perfect sense!" Koala smiled.

Sabo felt a strange heat grow on his cheeks. Her words struck him. Hadn't she just said how that character was attractive? He knew that it didn't mean anything, but it sure got to him deep down. It got to him so much that he got up and started to walk out of the room.

Koala stopped and paused the game, looking at him as he went. "S-Sabo-_kun_? What's wrong?"

"N-nothing...!" Sabo coughed.

"Huh...? Was there something I said?"

_Yes__..._ "No! It's nothing!" Sabo lied. He walked out of the cabin and slammed the wooden door behind him. He felt his heart start to beat faster than it had been previously. He would not be drawn into his brothers' foolish antics! He would not allow himself to be feeling such things as love like that towards his friend. Koala was just his friend, and nothing else!

"Sabo-_kun_?" Sabo turned around to look at the young brunette. "What happened? You're so frantic...! You keep running out for no reason! Is there something wrong? If there is, please tell me!"

"No, Koala. There's nothing." Sabo shook his head and looked away from her.

Koala grabbed his shoulder, pulling him over so that he could stare at her. "Sabo-_kun_! Tell me what's going on! I'm not stupid."

"What! I never said that you were, Koala!" Sabo defended.

"Then you should know that I can see that your brothers left for a reason! Why are we alone, Sabo-_kun_? And don't you dare tell me that it's 'nothing!' Because I know that that's not true!"

Sabo paused, looking into her brown eyes. She was too convincing. "Fine..." Sabo sighed, "The others, _apparently_, wanted to make us fall in love while they were gone."

Koala paused. "M-match-maker or something?"

"Y-yeah..."

The brunette frowned deeply. "That's so childish! How dumb can they be? What? They think that we'll fall in love just because I'm the only woman that you know? Because I'm the only woman here? That's so stupid..."

Sabo smiled. "I'm glad that you feel the same way, Koala-_chan_!"

Koala scowled even more. "Why wouldn't I!? What do you think I'd do? Blush and run into the forest and get lost just like those three imbeciles did!"

"Three?"

"Oh, please! You can't possibly think that Hack would have agreed to this! He probably just went along because everyone else did and he didn't want what already happened to happen..."

Sabo looked forward. "Maybe we should contact them? By now they should have found the gas station, at least."

"Oh, there's a gas station nearby? Then there's no need. Hack'll get it figured out. He knows what to do."

"H-he does...?"

* * *

"Whatcha doin'?" Luffy asked as he stuffed his face full of chips.

Hack typed away on the computer that had been sitting behind the counter of the gas station that they had found. "Koala and I's van has a tracking device within it, just in case we ever lose it!"

Ace let out a quick laugh, patting Hack's shoulder. "I knew that you'd pull through and be of some use to us, Hack!"

Hack stopped, looking up to glare at Ace. "Please. Don't lie..."

"Oh, no! I didn't!"

"Whatever..." Hack looked back at his computer, continuing to search away. "There! There it is!" Ace and Marco leaned in to stare at the map that was on the screen. "Thank Oda! We're not lost! Now, let me just print out these instructions-"

"Hey! What the hell are you doing!?" The four men whipped their heads around, seeing the owner of the store aiming a rifle at the them. "Who the hell told you that you could mess with my computer and steal my food!?"

"Run!" Ace screamed, him and Marco springing over the counter.

"But the directions!" Hack protested.

"But the food!" Luffy whined.

"Who the cares!" Marco and Ace screeched, running out of the store.

Hack sighed, running out of the gas station as well. Luffy rolled his eyes, turning around and grabbing as much chips and candy as he could possibly carry. Luffy ran out of the shop as well, gunshots firing from behind them. "Hey! Thieves! Stop!"

When Luffy caught up with the other three men, Ace looked over at him in shock. "Luffy! What the hell were you thinking!?"

"I was thinking that I was hungry!"

"You don't just steal, little brother!"

"I'm sorry...!"

"You can't just say 'sorry' to stealing, man! _Now_ what are we gonna do!? We're already in a whole lotta trouble with Sabo!" Ace growled.

"Then what do I do with all of this food?!" Luffy cried.

Ace sighed and looked ahead, still running on. "Well, you can't return it now... Just...keep it, I guess..."

Finally, they made it to a halt, Ace, Marco, and Hack were breathing hard while Luffy had no trouble breathing in all of the food that he had stolen. "Now what do we do?" Hack sighed, "I didn't even print out the directions! That was our last chance of getting back..."

"Don't be so sad, fishman!" Ace told him, patting his back. He pointed at Marco. "Marco here's got a fantastic memory!"

"Yep! I know how to get back to the cabin!" Marco replied with a smile.

"W-what! You do?! Then how? Where do we have to go?" Hack pleaded, his hopes finally rising again.

"That way!" Marco pointed to his right.

Hack looked over to the right. He stopped and hung his head and let out a loud sigh. There, in front of them, was the cabin in plain sight. "Dammit... H-how...? How was it so easy...!"

"Oh! Ha! Well, wontcha look at that!" Luffy laughed. "It's the cabin! Look, guys! It's the cabin! We've found it! It wasn't all that hard to find, after all, either!"

"Well, aren't you a genius..." Hack muttered.

"Oh, stop! You don't have to flatter me!" Luffy giggled, strangely, taking his sarcasm as a compliment.

The men walked up the dirt driveway, stopping at the porch steps. The four stared up at Sabo and Koala sitting on the wooden chairs there. They looked back at each other for a long time. Finally, Sabo called out, "How was your walk?"

Ace forced a smile. "Splendid~! How was your time?"

Sabo forced a smile as well. "Just _peachy_~!"

"Great!" the black-haired man replied.

"_Great_!" the blond said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Why are we speaking so loud!?" Luffy suddenly screamed, getting a light kick from Ace. "I see!" he quickly said.

"Luffy, how did you get all of that food?" Sabo suddenly asked him.

"Huh? Oh! You mean _this_?" Luffy asked, pointing with his nose at the bundles of food and drinks in his arms.

"Yes, Luffy. I mean that." Sabo nodded, trying to keep his composure.

"Oh! Ha! Haha! You don't want to know."

There was a long pause. Sabo and Koala looked at each other until the blond finally turned back to him and nodded slowly. "All... right...?" Sabo stood up. "You guys have been gone for a while. We've been waiting for you guys. You all should come in at last."

"Oh! You know I want to!" Luffy giggled, running up the steps, through the door, and instantly springing onto the couch in the living room.

Marco walked into the cabin after Luffy, Koala and Hack going in next. Sabo grabbed Ace's arm before he could go in. Ace turned to the blond-haired man. "Ace... I'm... I'm sorry."

Ace let out a small smile back at him, dipping his head. "N-no, Sabo. You shouldn't be apologizing. I'm the one who should be saying sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you. I was being stupid."

Sabo frowned softly at him. "Ace. You should know, though, that...if that ever happens again. I wouldn't hesitate for a second to tell you to stop. It's not because I dislike you, it's just-"

"No." Ace interrupted him. "As you should, Sabo. I'm... I'm different when I'm like that, and...not in a good way."

"Ace. You're my brother. I will always be there for you and shall always be doing my best to make sure that the best always comes to you. No matter what I have to lose to do that for you," Sabo told him.

"Good!" Ace grabbed his shoulder. "Then I should hold you to your word, shouldn't I?"

"Of course!" Sabo nodded. "Do you forgive me now?"

Ace smirked. "Depends! Do you forgive me?"

"Always. We're brothers, after all. I might yell at you and tell you that I hate you, but at the end of day, we're friends to the end."

"Friends?!"

Sabo rolled his eyes with a smile. "Brothers. To the end."

Sabo began to walk away. However, before he could enter the house, Ace called to him, "Sabo. Can you promise me something?"

The blond turned around to him. "Yeah. What's up?"

"No matter what I do, Sabo, promise me that Luffy comes before me. Luffy will always matter more than I do. You got that?" Ace asked him.

Sabo stopped and whipped around to him. "No! I don't! There's no way in hell that I'm gonna go that for you. You're both my brothers. I can't choose one over the other! I'd never-"

"_Promise me._"

Sabo stopped. "A-Ace..." Ace's eyes held a worrying gaze. "I..."

"Please, Sabo. Luffy's our little brother. He matters more than I do, and he always will. So, please, Sabo. Promise me this," Ace demanded.

They stared at each other for a long time. Sabo finally swallowed the rock in his throat and nodded. "O-okay... L-Luffy matters more... I promise you, Ace, that I will always put Luffy before you..."

Ace smiled at him. "Thank you, Sabo. Thank you."

* * *

**Finally finished! Haha!**

**Thank goodness! I'm finally done with this thing! I thought that I would never finish this chapter! So many things in my way, my awesome new book, finals, and the holidays (and a bunch of other things, but none of those things matter).**

**I hope that all of you had a _wonderful_ holiday. Thanksgiving, Christmas (or whatever you celebrate), and now I wish you a happy, happy new year. :) Let's make 2015 amazing. Maybe, maybe we can wipe some of the tears out of the world's eyes. I know that the world can never be perfect, but let's just try to make it...better. 2014 sure as a hard year, full of disease, hatred, war, and thousands of other disasters. Let's try to smile more this year, hmm? :) Maybe that can fix a few things? The world needs a little positivity. Everyone does. There's never too much positivity. :) Now, have a wonderful holiday, and let's celebrate a new year! **

**(I just have to say this, or else I won't have any inspiration for the next chapter but...) Please leave a comment and tell me how you liked this chapter! Have a wonderful night/day, week, or year. :) I'll try to post the next chapter sooner than last time! Bye, y'all~! See you in 2015! (So weird to think about, by the way! :D)**


	25. Story Update

**Hello!**

**I know that this is sort of a weird thing to post, because truthfully, I don't like these update "chapters" either. It always makes me feel like, you don't need to tell me all of this, there may be something going on, but I can just wait for you, it's okay. If you post something, it'll make me over excited and stuff, blah blah blah, so on and so forth.**

**But, I just wanted to let all of you know that, I'm sorry that I haven't published anything in a few months. It's just that... let's just say that some of it is that I _literally_ have _no_ inspiration. Even though I now know what to write about, there's something... holding me back, I guess. Life has just been really hard lately and I just don't have the time for it... To put things simply: sometimes, I'm sure that for those of you that write fanfictions as well, you'll know that life doesn't allow you to have time for such things as fanfictions. There's school (homework), I'm writing a book that I need to write if I ever want to survive in the world as an author, friend issues, and...just feelings and all around personal stuff that gets in the way of your hobbies and recreational activities.**

**I don't even know if you guys even remember or care about this fanfiction anymore and that you've just moved on to better things, or maybe life has been getting in your way as well! Or maybe you are there and I've been too blind to see it? (You can send comments, you know! That's what really makes me inspired. I love to hear all of you guys talk. You are wonderful, inspiring people, and thank you for all of the comments that you have sent!) There are so many things. But, what I'm trying to say is that I'm trying by best to finish up this chapter, you guys are gonna love it, it's funny and stupid and I hope you guys will like it as much as I hope that you will!**

**Thank you for your patience, and I will give you Chapter 25 as soon as I possibly can! :)**

**Have a wonderful day/week/end! :D**


	26. STAP: The Stop Sign Thieves

**Hey, guys~! :D**

**Oh my God... It's been SO long! Do you guys even remember me? Hi, I'm Strix Prudens, nice to meet you- I hope that all of you had a wonderful last three months, a wonderful Christmas, a Happy New Year, a Lovely Valentines Day, and a Merry St. Patrick's Day! :)**

**_PLEASE READ!: _Okay, guys. There's a few things that I have to tell to all of you. I have completely lost inspiration for what to do for the rest of Luffy and his brothers and their friends' trip. That's mainly why it took me so long to post this chapter. So... (I'm so sorry about this, but I don't know what else to do...!) I have to cut their vacation short and just send Luffy back to school. I'm so sorry! They kind of did everything that I was wanting them to do in one day! I didn't plan it right... I should probably make an outline for this story. It'll really help me out better... But, that's how it's gonna be for now, okay? Okay. I'm glad that we've come to a compromise.**

**I have decided to stop writing top author's notes. They're a waste of time for me. Some people really know what to say in them, but I don't. I've noticed that I just seem to ramble on about things. You haven't come to read this fanfiction for the things that I have to say, you've come for the story! :) I'll be putting author's notes in the bottom, though. If I REALLY need to tell you guys something before the chapter begins, then I'll be putting them up top. So... yeah! That's just why there will no longer be author's notes up here, just in case you saw and were all like: "Whaaaa?" (I don't know if you guys would do that, but _I_ sure would!)**

**Anywho...! Let's get to this story! (Cue the page break!)**

**_WARNING_: DO NOT ATTEMPT THE FOLLOWING STUPID STUNT THAT APPEARS IN THIS CHAPTER. IT WOULD JUST BE...STUPID BECAUSE IT IS STUPID. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND I HOPE THAT YOU ENJOY THE LONG-OVERDUE CHAPTER.**

* * *

Due to the author's sudden boredom and lack of imagination, Luffy and his two brothers went home two days later. Luffy went back to school and continued his normal routine there. After all of Luffy's classes had finished, he would go over to the gym and practice for the large martial arts competition that was coming up. Afterwards, him and Zoro would drive home in Ace's car that he stole every morning and would spend the rest of the day with one another. Nami would complain to them about how they never took anything seriously, which would instead make the young man smile because he could see that she was getting more and more comfortable with them everyday. Sanji had started to eat lunch with them, however it was just because Nami was there. Usopp seemed to make something amazing almost every single day and he had quickly become the best student in Shop class, almost instantly making him the teacher's pet for their instructor Franky and blah, blah, blah, let's get to the main point, blah, blah, blah. Yes, life seemed simply perfect. It didn't seem like it could get any better.

One day, Luffy had gone over to Zoro's house to spend time with him. The young man lay flopped across Zoro's green-colored bed, his head hanging off of the side of it with his hair draping down and almost touching the carpet beneath him. "Ugh...! I'm so bored, Zoro...!" he groaned.

"I know...!" Zoro groaned back lying draped against his bean-bag chair in front of him, his head also pressed against the top of it. "There's nothing to do..."

"Well, we could make something to do, man," Luffy told him.

Zoro lifted his head up. "And that would be...?"

"Hmm... I dunno... I hadn't gone that far..."

"You wanna piss off a few people?" Zoro asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Luffy laughed at the suggestion, springing up and sitting straight, turning around to face his friend. "Oh yeah! Something along those lines! But what...?" They thought for a long time before Luffy spoke up again, "We could do that thing that we had wanted to do before I left for Sabo's cabin!"

"What do you mean? What was that again? You left like a week ago, dude."

"Oh, that's right! You have a short-term memory!" the young man chuckled.

"Do not!"

"Do too, dude! There's no point denying it, either, because it's a fact that _can't_ be denied," his friend told him with a wide grin. "The thing where we saw that guy ramming into that empty house, man! We should be heroes and stop the evil that the government has thrust upon this land! They haven't given the world enough stop signs!"

Zoro shot up in his seat. "That's a wonderful idea!"

"I know right! I always make the best ideas, don't I?"

"I'm... I'm not sure, dude. We don't have many ideas."

"Oh... That's right..."

"But, listen, man," Zoro told him seriously, "Where are we gonna get those stop signs? Do we make them?"

Luffy looked at him in disgust. "Are you insane, man!? How could you even suggest such a plan! People are put in jail for such a thing! What's it called again...? Counter-fighting! It's illegal to make your own government-made things, dude!"

Zoro stopped. "Isn't that 'counterfeiting', not 'counter-fighting'? And I thought that that was only for money..."

"No, I'm _pretty sure _that it's for everything," Luffy told him matter-of-factually.

"Oh..." Zoro blinked, wondering if he should believe him or not. In the end, he decided to go with it, "So, if we can't make our own stop signs... What do we do? I don't think that there is any other way to do this without it being illegal as well."

"Isn't it obvious?" Luffy said.

"I... I didn't think so."

"That's because you're stupid, Zoro."

"What...?"

"The obvious thing to do is to take them from places that they're already at and putting them in the places that we think that they should be!" Luffy told him, a face full of determination plastered onto his head.

Zoro paused for a while before replying, "But... isn't that more illegal that counterfeiting?"

Luffy hesitated. "I... I think so, yeah."

"Then should we do the first suggestion?"

"No."

"So we're going with...?"

"The stealing one."

"I'm confused," Zoro interrupted. "Why are we doing it like this? I have a feeling that this is going to be _very_ illegal and _very _dangerous, but you still want to do it? And you were so mortified by the counterfeiting idea because it was against the law, but stealing - and in this way, actually - is worse!"

"Zoro! Don't you understand?!" Luffy's voice rose with a deep tone to it, "Sometimes, a hero must break the law to keep the peace!"

"I don't think that this will keep any peace, actually... I think that this will only create chaos, Luffy," Zoro told him seriously.

"You wanna talk about chaos?! Look out your window at all of the destruction that that one person created, Zoro! _That's_ chaos!"

"But, you just said it yourself: 'that one man'. It's just one person. I actually don't think that he was...all there," Zoro said to his friend.

"Are you chickening out, Zoro? This is the peace of the entire world that we're talking about! The entire world!"

The two paused for a very long time.

"Are you sure that that's why you're doing all this, Luffy?" the green-haired man finally said.

"No," he answered, "I think it will be really super fun."

"Yeah, me too." Zoro nodded with a grin.

"So, you in?"

"Hells yeah, dude!"

"And if anyone asks..." Luffy began.

"...it's for the sake of world peace," they both finished, "Awwwwwwww yeeehhhh...!"

* * *

A large, black truck drove to a slow stop at a peaceful intersection, two young men staring at the stop sign out the passenger's seat window with wide eyes. "There it is..." the green-haired man whispered.

"I know..." the other whispered back.

In front of them and across the street was a little, old lady watering her petunias on her bright green lawn. She stared at them for a while as Zoro whispered, "Go get it, man...!"

"Okay...!" he replied back.

Luffy slowly opened the car door and cautiously crept towards the stop sign. He grabbed firmly onto the metal pole that held it into place and, with what seemed like little effort, pulled the stop sign out of the ground, leaving a large chunk of brown rock still beneath the pole. The black-haired teenager looked up at the old woman, whom was now holding her watering can to one spot on her side with her eyes wide open with surprise and shock. Luffy raised his hand up and waved to her normally. The old woman waved back.

"Have a nice day, old lady!" Luffy called out as he jumped back into the truck, throwing the stop sign in the bed of Zoro's truck.

"You too, dearie!" she called back as they drove away. The old woman turned back to her flowers as she continued to water them, muttering under her breath, "Kids these days and their Stop Sign Thieves..."

Back in the truck, Luffy and Zoro let out a howl of excitement. Luffy laughed heartily, "_Hell yeah, man!_ I feel so _awesome_! We're so amazing, dude!"

"Right on, dude!" Zoro nodded coolly with black shades covering his eyes.

"I feel so alive, Zoro!" Luffy chuckled. "I wonder how far this'll go!"

_**Four Weeks Later...**_

"Why are we doing this again...?" Law muttered behind the wheel of his Volkswagen car.

"We need bonding time because we hate each other too much!" Kidd replied from the passenger's seat beside him. "Don't worry! Bowling will be fun! Just do me a favor and don't be a dick during it, though. That's the only thing that'll ruin this. You know, actually, just...don't be yourself."

"I did nothing to you, Kidd..." Law snorted as he turned the car to the left. "My dream was to become a doctor and be one by the time I was twenty-five or twenty-six just like my father did, and his father, and all of the other people in my family. But now, since you've gotten me held back _three shitty years_, I'm going to be thirty by the time I'm a doctor! But that's the _least _of my worries... The medical school I want to go to, where all of the Trafalgar's before me went, won't _ever_ accept me now!"

"Did _nothing_ to me!? _I_ got you held back!?" Kidd scoffed. "First off, sure maybe I was _half_ of the reason why you were held back - but let me remind you that the other part is your own damn fault, yeh bastard! Also, don't you dare say that you did nothing to me! Don't you remember? All those years ago?"

"I'm not sure, Kidd... It was three years ago, after all... What? Did I stare at you and it pissed you off?" Law muttered.

"No! Well...sort of! But it wasn't exactly like that," Kidd said. "You flipped the bird at me, man!"

"Yeah! Maybe, but just because someone flips that bird at you doesn't mean that you have the right to _attack _them, Kidd!"

"Well, what else was I supposed to do!?" Kidd growled.

"You either let it be or you flip the bird back."

"I hate both of those suggestions!" Kidd screamed.

Law turned to Kidd to reply with a snarky comment but ran out of ideas. He turned back to look out the window with a scrunched-up, angry expression. As they continued driving, Kidd's eyes suddenly flew open wide.

He threw back his arm to Law, screaming, "Law, whoa! Check that out! Is that Monkey?"

Law stopped at the small intersection in front of a huge, black truck and looked out his window at Luffy pulling the stop sign beside them out of the ground. "Holy shit!" the young man screeched. "Kidd! Roll down your window! Roll down your window!" Kidd quickly pressed the button to put the window down. "Hey! Luffy!" Law called out loud to him, "That's dangerous as shit, kid! What'd ya think you're doing! You can't just-"

Suddenly, loud sirens started ringing from far up the road. Luffy's eyes flew open wide. He tossed the sign into the bed of the black truck and, without even opening up the door, crawled into the car through the open passenger seat's window. With their window rolled down, Law and Kidd could hear Luffy scream from within the vehicle, "Quick, Zoro! Step on it!"

With Luffy's legs still half-way out of the open window, the truck sped through the intersection, almost colliding with the police car and the other vehicle that were driving out of the intersection. Law and Kidd were left in complete and utter shock for several minutes at the scene that had just occurred in front of them, trying to process it all.

Finally, Kidd turned to Law and said, "So...? You still up for bowling?"

**Two Hours Later...**

Yellow police tape was strewn all around the border of white house. Inside the building, men hurried about, investigating different parts of the crime scene that was there. On the floor was a figure of a man outlined in white chalk and a body covered in a white sheet being carried out of the door. A blond-haired woman gasped for breath as she watched the men leave before bursting into another fit of tears.

"Now, Mrs. Figgleberg," a tall, broad man beside the woman said, "we'll need you to answer a few questions for us."

"O-of course, officer... Of course..." she replied.

The police chief had white hair, which was surprising for his age. He had thick arms and shoulders, a stern expression, and a fat cigar clenched in between his teeth, gray smoke billowing from it and clouding the air around them. He looked down at the outline on the floor and widened his eyes at it. Looking up at her, he asked, "What happened here?"

"I was..." The woman wiped her wet cheeks of the tears that had been streaming down her face and blew her nose with one of the tissues in the box a police officer had given her. "I was g-going out to get d-dinner supplies, and then...when I got home...he was...!" The woman burst into tears again.

The police officer leaned past with a disgusted face, as if he was worried that she would get some of her snot on him or something such as that. "Mrs. Figgleberg, please...! If you'd just try to cooperate and keep it together, then this would go much quicker!"

"I'm...I'm sorry..."

"So...your husband was at your house at the time of his death?" the police chief clarified.

"Yes... He did die in our house, and this is my husband and I's house...that we're standing in...right now," she answered, confused on why he had asked such an obvious question.

"Just making sure..." he replied. There was a quick pause before the officer continued, almost speaking in a different tone. "Did your husband own his own car?"

"Yes. He did...? I'm sorry, but how does this have to do with-"

"_Please! _Mrs. Figgleberg...! If you could _please _cooperate, that would just be _amazing_, thanks. We're almost done." The police chief rolled his eyes in annoyance at her. "Do you live near any intersections, Mrs. Figgleberg?"

"Yes. Of...of course I do."

"So that would mean that there would have to be _stop signs_ around your house, correct?!" he asked, his tone suddenly becoming quicker.

"Well, of course. If I live near intersections, then I of course lived near stop signs," the woman said in confusion at his strange questions. "I'm sorry, but none of this has anything to do with my husband's-"

"_Mrs. Figgleberg, please!_" the police chief yelled loudly in anger. "Don't test me, Mrs. Figgleberg! I am just doing my job, Mrs. Figgleberg! I'm almost done. Just one more question and then I think that I'll have cracked the case."

"Is it going to be another stupid quest-"

"Have the stop signs nearby your house been..._disappearing_?!" the police officer interrogated, a loud, dramatic tone sounded as he screamed the last word.

"Of course they have!" the woman sighed, her expression growing frustrated. "Ever since that 'STAP' team has come four weeks ago, everyone's stop signs have been disappearing! Of course! Of course my husband has a car! Of course I live near an intersection! Of course those intersections are supposed to have stop signs! And of course they're all gone! Are you really here to investigate my husband's murder or are you just here to make fun of me!? Well, I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not in the mood for your kind of attitude right now! My husband was just killed down go mess with some other messed up widow, will you?!"

"Oh! No, no, no!" the officer shook his head. "I wasn't here to investigate your case in the first place. I was just wondering what had happened to your husband and then I started asking you about my own case. I'm actually the one put to the task with catchin' those pranksters. They're sneaky, little bastards..."

"So...you're...not here for my husband's case...?" she repeated in shock.

"Oh, no. Of course not."

"Then who is?!"

"Officer Fugitora over there," the white-haired police officer pointed to the doorway where an old, black-haired, blind man made his way into the house, a wooden cane tapping in front of him.

"Sorry about that, everyone!" the blind officer apologized. "I can't drive so I walked the entire way here. Sorry about being late everyone!"

"Officer Fugitora!" people around him screamed in shock.

"I'm so sorry, sir! I should have given you a ride!" a police man beside him said worriedly. "But then when I asked, you said 'no' and that you already had a ride here! I thought that you mean someone else was getting you here, sir!"

"No. I said that I had a way to get here, actually. But it's completely fine! No need to worry! I enjoyed walk anyhow!"

"No, sir! You took an hour and a half to get here! The station is thirty minutes away! You're blind, you can't-"

"I can't what!?" Fugitora interrupted.

Everyone stopped.

"Don't think lowly of me, boys! The reason why I took so long was because I helping a little boy find his way back to his parents' house," Fugitora replied, which made an even longer pause go through everyone.

"Sir... It seems like that would take longer than the walk. How long did the walk take you, sir?" the police man next to him asked.

"Twenty minutes."

"Sir! You're blind! How did you get here faster than it takes us to get her by car...?" the man asked.

Fugitora suddenly glared at the man sternly. "What're you saying, boy...? Are you saying that a blind man can't walk?"

"No! Not at all! I'm saying that _I _wouldn't even be able to get here on foot in twenty minutes, and I have 20/20 vision, sir!" the police man said.

Fugitora turned away and began to walk slowly towards the woman as he replied to the man over his shoulder, "I have very fast legs."

As the new police chief came in to interrogate the victim's wife, a young, clumsy, black-haired woman ran in, tripping a few times as she did, calling out the white-haired officer's name. "Smoker-_san_! Smoker-_san_! I have news on STAP!"

Smoker quickly strode out of the house to meet up with his assistant. "Ah...! Excellent work, Tashigi! What's happened?"

"Two hours ago, they stole five more stop signs from different locations!" she replied.

"Oh! They're quick, aren't they?"

"Yes! Yes, they are, sir." Tashigi nodded. "I heard some people calling in saying that they think that they know where the pranksters live!"

"Excellent work, Tashigi!" Smoker complimented her again as they got into their police car. The white-haired officer sat down in the driver's seat, Tashigi in the passenger's. He looked over at her and smiled. "Lead the way, Tashigi! Lead the way!"

Finally, they arrived at a small cul-de-sac. Smoker looked around suspiciously as they pulled up turned around the corner.

"You sure this is it, Tashigi?" Smoker asked her. "That doesn't seem weird. It's just so...peaceful here! I doubt that there could be anything going on around-"

Suddenly, when they drove down the road more, they reached the end of the street. In front of them was a row of houses that curved around to meet with the sidewalk. One of the houses in the very middle was lined with white tape bordering it off from people entering it, probably because all that was left of the front of the house was a large pile of rubble that used to be the garage door. On their right, sat a strange pile. It was a very, very odd pile made up entirely of hundreds of stop signs from everywhere in the city.

Without looking at each other, Tashigi finally replied, "So? Do you believe me now, Smoker-_san_?"

"Hell yeah!" Smoker laughed, excited that he had almost found his criminals. "I think that we should investigate this area a bit more."

* * *

**Sorry that ended so abruptly, like all of the other chapters do! I hope you liked it, though! :) **

**I wanted to write a cute, funny, little chapter just to get back into the swing of things before heading onto the plot more. I hope that that's alright with all of you! :) I hope that you thought that this chapter was funny! ****PLEASE give me feedback! Tell me what you thought was funny or certain aspects you admired and I'll make sure to continue writing the things that you guys enjoy! :) **

**Sorry that this took so long! I hope that you have a BEAUTIFUL summer! :D **

**Stay super awesome, my friends! ;D Bye! I love ya! **


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